Sauce for the goose: North Korea’s nuclear power play

Within weeks of surrendering, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto called a secret meeting of nuclear and military officials and said he wanted the atomic bomb. A 125MW heavy-water reactor, built with Canadian assistance, became operational near Karachi the same year.

According to some sources, the US was not in the dark about these developments, and within a year there was clear evidence that Pakistan was buying nuclear technology and materials from European countries.

The US and other superpowers, officially or unofficially, commended Israel, India and Pakistan as members of their nuclear club when they secretly managed to achieve atomic capabilities and announce themselves as atomic powers.

India has not yet signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but in March 2006 when President Bush visited, he made a nuclear technology fuel deal which the US describes as a “landmark” agreement on civil nuclear technology. The reasons are obvious: the US does not consider India a threat, and needs India to counter China in the region.

The way nuclear-power states behave, politically and militarily, towards smaller states basically motivates them - whether it is North Korea, Iran or others - to secure themselves by obtaining nuclear technology and developing nuclear warheads.

It’s a power game that will continue as long as non-atomic states consider atomic states a threat. The non-atomic states will continue to follow in the superpowers’ footsteps, using legitimate or illegitimate means to get control of atomic technology

A peaceful and threat-free world can be possible only if the atomic powers fairly and openly dismantle their weapons of mass destruction, and set an example to those who are secretly endeavouring to jump into the nuclear arms race.