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| 15 April 2004 | Thursday | 24 Safar 1425 |
Benazir says she sanctioned Korean missile purchase
WASHINGTON, April 14: Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has said that in 1994 she had sanctioned the purchase of ballistic missile technology from North Korea.
But she said during her second term - 1994 to 1996 - she also declined to approve another budget proposal to locally develop a long-range missile technology.
She said her government believed in the policy of "keeping parity with India" and did not want to "develop longer ranged missiles than theirs." In a letter to United Press International, Ms Bhutto said that after Pakistan detonated nuclear devices in May 1998, it came under great financial pressure.
"If any swap (of nuclear technology for money) took place, it would be some time after May 1998 when Pakistan no longer had money to make payments." "After Pakistan's financial crisis in May 1998, there were hawks who argued that Pakistan could earn money selling nuclear technology," she said.
She dismissed media reports as speculative that Libyan leader Col Qadhafi had visited the Canadian-built reactor in Karachi. She said the project in Karachi started in the 1960s.
"Munir Ahmed Khan was indeed the long-term chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and considered by many as the real 'father' of Pakistan's bomb," said Ms Bhutto.
She was also asked to comment on a report that Mohammed Beg, who claimed to be a senior official in her father's government, had revealed that Col Qadhafi "supervised transfers of suitcases filled with US dollars to Pakistan on PIA flights."
"Mohammed Beg was never a confidant of my father. I do not even recall him, and I can recall the small group of people that could call on my father," said Ms Bhutto. "Power is a lonely mountain top and my father was not the type of man to share secrets freely." She rejected the suggestion that Z.A. Bhutto had renamed the Lahore stadium after Col Qadhafi because he had financed Pakistan's nuclear programme.
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