Dutch firm likely source of nuke info

The Salt Lake Tribune ^ | January 20 2004 | LA Times

[knighthawk]

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Two government ministers in the Netherlands acknowledged Monday that highly sensitive nuclear technology developed by a Dutch company may have been transferred to Libya and North Korea along with Iran and Pakistan.

The disclosure in Parliament in Amsterdam marked the first public confirmation of assertions that centrifuge technology for enriching uranium apparently found its way to Libya and North Korea.

It was already known that Pakistan and Iran had the technology.

The Dutch officials, Foreign Minister Bernard Bot and Economic Affairs Minister Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, said it was not clear how the potentially arms-related technology had been transferred. But diplomats elsewhere said the public comments were likely to increase pressure on Pakistan, which has already been linked to Iran's capability and is suspected of providing the technology to North Korea and Libya.

U.S. officials have long suspected that Abdul Qadeer Khan, who led the development of Pakistan's atomic bomb, stole the centrifuge secrets in the 1970s while working for the Dutch company Urenco.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[facedown]

But Pakistani officials have conceded that people who were trying to make money might have sold nuclear technology to Iran in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Ya think?

[swarthyguy]

Disaffected lower ranks and extremist fringe /sarc

General Beg being queried on nukes transfer: Report
Press Trust of India
New Delhi, January 20

General Aslam Beg, former Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan who allegedly tried to sell nuclear technology to Iran for $ 12 billion, is being questioned in Islamabad, a leading London daily reported on Tuesday.

The maverick General was held after Abdul Qadeer Khan, architect of Pakistani nuclear programme, told investigators during a debriefing that nuclear cooperation with Iran had been authorised by the Army officer, The Times claimed.

General Beg, one of a number of senior officers with Islamist sympathies, was the Chief of Army Staff from 1988-91 -- the period during which the country's nuclear secrets were allegedly passed on to Iran.

General Beg, who also served as head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, is said to have tried to persuade the civilian governments in power during that period to transfer nuclear technology in return for the money that Iran was allegedly prepared to pay and which would have underwritten the Pakistani military budget for a considerable time. The offer was rejected.

Pakistani authorities have also detained eight other officials linked with its premier nuclear weapons laboratory. Among them were two retired Brigadiers who until recently had served as Directors at the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) and a retired major.

Major Islamul Haq, a close aide and principal staff officer to Khan, was detained by two intelligence officials while dining at Khan's house. His wife said she had heard nothing from him since then.

[piasa]

fyi

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!