Pakistan did not assist North Korea in Nuclear Technology: Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan

Pakistan did not assist North Korea in Nuclear Technology: Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan

ISLAMABAD: Nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadir Khan has said North Korea’s nuclear technology is much better than Pakistan’s, a couple of days after North Korea conducted sixth nuclear test.

“China and Russia will not leave North Korea alone,” he said in an interview with BBC Urdu on Monday, in a reference to mounting international pressure on Pyongyang after it announced that it has tested a hydrogen bomb

Recalling his trips to North Korea, he said he found Korean experts highly capable and most of them have studied in Russia.

Ruling out Pakistan’s assistance to North Korea in nuclear technology, he said: “It is out of question, their technology is much better than ours. Ours is the same old American technology”.

“We neither saw their (nuclear) facility nor discussed this issue.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. Typically, China and Russia only view a test of a long-range missile or a nuclear weapon as a trigger for further possible U.N. sanctions.

Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in May 1998, shortly after India announced it had done so. Both countries faced international sanctions as a result.