NKorea built plant to make gas for uranium enrichment: Report

North Korea may have constructed a plant to manufacture a gas needed for uranium enrichment in a development that would indicate that Pyongyang had opened a second way to build nuclear weapons.

North Korea may have constructed a plant to manufacture a gas needed for uranium enrichment in a development that would indicate that Pyongyang had opened a second way to build nuclear weapons as early as the 1990s,The Washington Post has reported.

Citing a previously unpublicised account by Abdul Qadeer Khan,the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb program,the newspaper late yesterday said North Korea may have been enriching uranium on a small scale by 2002,with maybe 3,000 or even more centrifuges.

Pakistan helped North Korea with vital machinery,drawings and technical advice for at least six years,the report said.

Story continues below this ad

The Post said Khan’s account could not be independently corroborated. But one US intelligence official and a US diplomat said his information adds to their suspicions that North Korea has long pursued the enrichment of uranium in addition to making plutonium for bombs.

It also may help explain Pyongyang’s assertion in September that it is in the final stages of such enrichment,the paper noted. Khan described his dealings with the country in official documents and in correspondence with a former British journalist,Simon Henderson,who said he thinks an accurate understanding of Pakistan’s nuclear history is relevant for US policymaking,the report pointed out.

The Post independently verified that the documents were produced by Khan.