India's position that disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan could not have acted individually stands vindicated with his admission that Islamabad was involved in the proliferation activities involving China, Iran, North Korea and Libya, experts say.
India's position that disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan could not have acted individually stands vindicated with his admission that Islamabad was involved in the proliferation activities involving China, Iran, North Korea and Libya, experts say.
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"In any case, it is very well known that AQ Khan and Pakistan had worked together in proliferation of nuclear technology. It was also known that China and Pakistan were working together. The letter by Khan is a confirmation of all these," former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra said.
Commenting on the disclosures by Khan, former Foreign Secretary Shashank said the letter, written by Khan to his Dutch wife Henny, vindicated India's assertion that Pakistan's nuclear proliferation could not have been an individual's activity.
"The letter confirms India's assertion that Pakistan's proliferation business could not have been an individual's activity," he said. "The network was running for a very long period of time and known to many governments and that there had been efforts to hide these activities," the former Foreign Secretary said.
Khan, in the letter, had said that Pakistani government and the military had a hand in the country's nexus with the controversial nuke programmes of Iran, North Korea and Libya. The letter, details of which were published in the Sunday Times, was written by Khan to his wife after his arrest in 2003.
Former High Commissioner to Pakistan G Parthasarathi was of the view that Khan's disclosures confirm China's help to Pakistan in developing its nuclear arsenal. "It is a nuclear scientist blowing the lid on the fact that before Pakistan developed its enrichment capacities, the designing that AQ Khan got were passed onto China and China developed it and these guys nearly reverse engineered what the Chinese gave them," Parthasarathi said.
Mishra said the content of the letter also established the stand of the NDA government that China had helped Pakistan to develop nuclear weapons. "Finally, the revelations confirmed what the NDA government had said at the time of Pokhran II. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had written a letter to the US, the UK, France and Russia in which he had said that China helped Pakistan to acquire nuclear arms. So India did not have any option but to conduct the tests," he said.
Former DRDO scientist K Santhanam said Khan was a national hero in Pakistan till he was found peddling nuclear technologies to other countries.
"When the bubble bursts, (Pervez) Musharraf could not prevent taking action against AQ Khan who was earlier honoured with Pakistan's highest civilian award," Santhanam said.
"In a sense, AQ Khan was a national hero for Pakistan as he put his country on the global nuclear map. Later, there were some developments in which he was found to have peddled nuclear technologies to some countries. Normally, sensitive technology trade is not done but he was doing it for pecuniary gain," he said.
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