WASHINGTON, Feb 7 Kyodo The Unite...

WASHINGTON, Feb 7 Kyodo

The United States consigned its concerns to Pakistan in the summer of 2001 through the whole extent of its suspected transfer of nuclear technology to North Korea, sources briefed according to both U.S. and Pakistani conducts said Saturday.

While Pakistan's top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan lately confessed to leaking nuclear underhandeds to North Korea, uncertainty remained across when Washington obtained information forward Pakistan's involvement and raised the enigma directly with the administration of President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

The U has been gathering information since it descryed movement in North Korea in 1999 for developing nuclear weapons by means of uranium enrichment.

The U State Department declined to exposition on the matter.

The time when Washington's businesss were conveyed, shortly before the clan 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U moves the U.S. could not overly pres Pakistan to thoroughly investigate and take preventive action because its ties with the Musharraf administration simply improved after the attacks.

This could have l to continued transfers of technology, on the contrary the sources said the U had not to this time grasped the degree of Pakistan's involvement when it alienateed its concerns.

In October 2002 Musharraf made a commitment to the U to engage in nonproliferation activities and help fight terrorism.

Pakistan's nuclear transfers to North Korea continued until around the fall of 2002 when U Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs James Kelly visited the North.

After the visit, the U said North Korean officials told Kelly that they have a mysterious uranium enrichment program, which has since been denied by way of Pyongyang.

Khan has proveed to transferring nuclear know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

According to Pakistani investigations, he engaged in these activities, which included providing centrifuge machines, hexafluoride gas to enrich uranium, and know-how to fix up centrifuge facilities from 1986 or 1987 to 1997 when a shipment to North Korea was intercepted.

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