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| October 11, 2006 | Wednesday | Ramazan 17, 1427 |
‘Test more worrying than S. Asian blasts’
ISLAMABAD, Oct 10: Eight years ago it was India and Pakistan who shocked the world with their underground atomic blasts, but North Korea’s nuclear test on Monday is far more alarming, analysts said.
In May 1998 a South Asian apocalypse suddenly seemed a possibility after the two rival nations carried out tit-for-tat tests — the last nuclear explosions until now.
News bulletins at the time showed footage of a barren yellow mountain in remote southwestern Pakistan shuddering with the sheer force of simultaneous detonations deep below the earth.
Yet the situation now is more serious, analysts said, particularly as Pyongyang may have learned lessons from Pakistan, whose nuclear hero provided North Korea with atomic secrets.
“I would say that this is much more significant,” analyst and retired Pakistani Army General Talat Masood told AFP.
“In 1998 it was much more India-Pakistan specific, but the North Korean test means US nuclear hegemony in East Asia has collapsed, the counter-proliferation policy by the US has collapsed and their axis of evil policy has collapsed,” he said.
Mainly Hindu India carried out its first nuclear test in secret in 1974.
In 1998 New Delhi followed up by detonating five warheads beneath the Rajasthan desert between May 11 and 13.
Pakistan came under huge international pressure not to follow suit but it exploded five bombs in Baluchistan province on May 28 and another two days later.
The two countries became the world’s sixth and seventh declared nuclear powers respectively, while Pakistan also emerged as the only nation in the Islamic world with the bomb.
“It’s a formidable challenge for a country after they have detonated,” said analyst Gen Masood. “There is fear of the unknown, as to how the world will react, what the consequences are, what the sanctions will be.”
Major powers did impose strict sanctions but they evaporated after a time. Pakistan joined the US-led “war on terror” in 2001, while Washington earlier this year offered India a civilian nuclear power deal.
Naresh Chandra, who was India’s ambassador to Washington when India conducted the nuclear tests, said North Korea may have been influenced by Pakistan’s escape from US sanctions.
“Pakistan got off lightly even after the A.Q. Khan network was exposed. The US believed their version of the story and they were let off easily. They also got economic aid and financial support,” Mr Chandra said.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan’s former chief atomic scientist, admitted in 2004 that he had provided nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. The government denied its involvement but gave him a pardon.
President Pervez Musharraf admits that Khan sold Pyongyang around a dozen centrifuges to enrich uranium, but Pakistan says that North Korea’s test bomb was likely plutonium-based.
“There was also a bit of a cover up when China helped Pakistan and North Korea with nuclear and weapons technology and the US turned a blind eye to this,” Mr Chandra added.
“Perhaps North Korea thinks the US will look the other way again.”
C.U. Bhaskar, a defence analyst with the New Delhi-based Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis — a government-funded military think-tank — said North Korea was counting on getting more international clout.
“The test allows North Korea to enter the six-party talks as a nuclear weapon state on par with China, Russia and the United States,” he said.
Pyongyang has boycotted the stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear programme since last November.—AFP
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