Pak helped NKorea build nuke weapons as early as 1990: Report

North Korea, with the help of Pakistan, may have opened an alternative way to clandestinely build nuclear weapons as early as 1990s by constructing a plant to manufacture a gas needed for uranium enrichment.

Pyongyang may have been enriching uranium on a small scale by 2002, with maybe 3,000 or even more centrifuges and Pakistani supplied vital machinery, drawings and technical advice, The Washington Post has reported citing an account by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb programme.

The Post quoting a US intelligence official said Khan’s information adds to their suspicions that North Korea has long pursued the enrichment of uranium in addition to making plutonium for bombs.