(서울=연합뉴스) 조채희 기자 = 페르베즈 무샤라프 파키스탄 대통령은 북한이 파키스탄 핵기술자 압둘 카디르 칸 박사의 밀매조직으로부터 핵무기연료를 생산할 수 있는 원심분리기를 "12개 정도" 확보했을 것으로 믿는다고 12일 밝혔다.

뉴욕 타임스 인터넷판에 따르면 무샤라프 대통령은 그러나 칸 박사를 2년 가까이 조사했지만 북한이나 이란에 핵무기를 제조할 수 있는 중국산 설계도를 건넸다는 증거는 확보하지 못했다고 말했다.

무샤라프 대통령은 이날 뉴욕 타임스 기자들과 만나 이같이 밝혔으며 기사는 뉴욕 타임스의 데이비드 생어 백악관 출입기자가 작성했다.

무샤라프 대통령은 지난 달 23일 일본 교도통신과의 회견에서도 칸 박사가 90년대초부터 북한에 원심분리기 본체와 관련부품, 설계도를 보냈다고 말했다.

교도통신과의 회견에서 그는 칸 박사가 제공했다는 원심분리기의 수량에 대해서는 모른다고 밝혔다.

뉴욕 타임스는 이날 무샤라프 대통령의 발언은 교도통신과의 회견내용을 구체화한 것으로 북한이 칸 박사 조직으로부터 확보한 우라늄 기술을 사용해 2차 핵무기개발 프로그램에 비밀리에 착수했다는 미 정보당국의 2002년 주장을 뒷받침하는 것이라고 지적했다.

뉴욕 타임스는 원심분리기 12개는 의미있는 분량의 무기급 우라늄을 만드는데는 충분치 않지만 북한이 설계도를 복사해 자체적으로 제작할 수는 있었을 것이라고 미국 전문가들을 인용해 전했다.

칸 박사와 관련하여 미국이 조사하도록 허용하지 않은 채 2년동안 직접 조사하겠다고 주장해 온 파키스탄 무사라프 대통령은, 칸 박사가 리비아에서 발견된 핵폭탄 설계도를 북한과 이란에게도 전달했는지에 대해서 "그가 그 같은 핵폭탄 설계도를 다른 국가에 전달했는지 아닌지 알지 못한다. 그러한 증거는 없다"고 말했다.

파키스탄 핵 개발의 아버지로 불리는 칸 박사는 지난 2004년 초 이란과 리비아, 북한에 파키스탄 정부 모르게 민감한 기술을 이전했다고 털어놓았으며 현재 이슬라마바드 자택에 연금돼있는 상태다.

(원문)

September 13, 2005

Pakistan Leader Confirms Nuclear Exports

By DAVID E. SANGER

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said yesterday that he believed that a Pakistani nuclear expert who ran the world's largest proliferation ring exported "probably a dozen" centrifuges to North Korea to produce nuclear weapons fuel. He added, however, that after two years of interrogations there was still no evidence about whether the expert also gave North Korea a Chinese-origin design to build a nuclear weapon.

General Musharraf's comments, which echo statements he made last month to Japanese reporters, were made in an interview a day before the United States was to reopen talks with North Korea about its nuclear program in Beijing.

The Pakistani leader's comments about the results of the interrogations of the expert, A. Q. Khan, a national hero who is under a loose form of house arrest in Islamabad, are significant because they tend to confirm the accusations American intelligence officials made against North Korea in 2002.

At that time, North Korean officials appeared to confirm that they had secretly started up a second nuclear program to build atomic weapons using uranium technology obtained from Mr. Khan's network, as an alternative to a plutonium program that was frozen under a 1994 agreement with the United States. But ever since, North Korea has denied that a second, secret bomb program exists.

A dozen centrifuges would not be enough to produce a significant amount of bomb-grade uranium. But American officials say they would have enabled North Korea to copy the design and build their own.

The Bush administration has insisted that unless North Korea agrees to give up both programs - and agrees to a broad program of inspections - no comprehensive nuclear deal can be reached. North Korea has suggested it may be willing to give up its older plutonium program, based at a huge nuclear complex located at Yongbyon, but has reiterated its denials that it has hidden centrifuges to make bomb-grade uranium.

In a wide-ranging discussion in New York with three journalists from The New York Times, General Musharraf also discussed Pakistan's tentative diplomatic openings toward Israel and its efforts to track down Al Qaeda leaders. He said that the opening to Israel could flourish "in case there is forward movement" on negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, but he said, "this is by no means recognition of Israel."

Despite protests in Pakistan about the new initiative, he insisted that his move had met little opposition among mainstream Muslims in Pakistan, and he is to address a Jewish group for the first time during his visit here. "What is the harm if I interacted with the Jewish Congress, knowing their influence here?" he said.

He said it was possible that Osama bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, is still moving between remote parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan four years after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. "I will not negate entirely, with confidence, that he is not there," he said. "But I will never accept anybody who says with confidence that he is there." He said later that he often asks, "Do you have intelligence, have you heard him?"

Mr. bin Laden's whereabouts are a particularly sensitive subject for General Musharraf because Pakistan has been accused by some intelligence officials of doing a lackluster job of pursuing Qaeda suspects, stepping up pressure on them when it suits Pakistani interests but turning down the pressure at other times. He rejected that charge, saying Mr. bin Laden's power is reduced, no matter where he is.

"I do not think he can influence, because he is on the run, hiding," General Musharraf said. If Mr. bin Laden is on the Pakistan-Afghan border, he is switching sides "wherever he sees danger," General Musharraf added.

He rejected arguments that Pakistan was halfhearted in its efforts to root out Al Qaeda and remnants of the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan until the American-led war there in 2001. "We have almost eliminated them from our cities," he said. "We have caught about 700 of them, and we have broken their back in the mountains." The groups no longer operate in the valleys of the Afghan border area, he said, "because we have occupied them."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, also speaking to reporters yesterday at The New York Times, praised General Musharraf for working in three areas, and said the United States would be supportive: helping to pursue members of Al Qaeda, creating "diplomatic space" for operating by reaching out to India and Israel, and working to improve education and the economy to discourage militancy. "There are parts of Pakistan that are extremely poor where you get breeding grounds for this kind of extremism," she said, and the United States would help him deal with those.

General Musharraf said that, in a meeting he had yesterday with Ms. Rice, he asked her to move toward a free-trade agreement with Pakistan. That is likely to meet some resistance in Congress, which derailed efforts by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks to aid Pakistan by lifting restrictions on textile imports.

But he said he made no demands for an agreement that would match the Bush administration's offer to help India develop a civilian nuclear power program. India and Pakistan have refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and that has prevented most forms of nuclear cooperation with the United States.

In his discussion of Mr. Khan, General Musharraf said that two years of questioning of Mr. Khan - which the Pakistanis insisted they would do themselves, rather than allowing the United States to question him - a critical question had not been resolved: Did the scientist give the same bomb design to North Korea and Iran that investigators found in Libya, when it dismantled its uranium program.

"I don't know," he said. "Whether he passed these bomb designs to others - there is no such evidence."

Steven R. Weisman contributed reporting for this article.