February 14, 2005 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
An investigation by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, details of which have been disclosed to The Telegraph, confirmed that Khan, a hero in Pakistan as the “Father of the Bomb”, and his associates sold nuclear codes, materials, components and plans that left his “signature” at the core of the Iranian nuclear programme.
The admission came during private talks in Brussels at the end of last month between European Union officials and senior ministers from Pakistan and India. [The Telegraph]Few people would be surprised to know that A Q Khan cleverly sold nuclear technology to the Iranians, but he did this very carefully, ensuring that its Shia rulers did not steal a march over its Sunni ally, Saudi Arabia.
But even as it is compelled to come clean on its nefarious activities, it is keen not to allow India to benefit from its discomfiture — hence the inclusion of a mention of ‘senior ministers’ from India in the report . Surely, those ‘senior ministers’ from India would hardly be privy to ISI’s ‘investigations’ into Khan’s activities. Considering that most of the contents of the report are already well-known, its key purpose seems to be to signal to the Iranians that despite keeping a studied distance, India too has a hand in implicating them on the nuclear weapons issue.
If you would like to share or comment on this, please discuss it on my GitHub
Previous © Copyright 2003-2024. Nitin Pai. All Rights Reserved.