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Ghauri missile based on smuggled North Korean technology: New York Times

C K Arora in Washington

Pakistan's Ghauri missile was based on technology smuggled from North Korea, says the New York Times, quoting US government officials and private analysts.

The new liquid-fuelled missile is an enhanced version of the North Korean Rodong Missile, which is a fancy version of the Scud missile developed in Moscow in the 1960s, they said.

It quoted Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control Director Gary Milhollin as saying, ''The Pakistani missile is based on North Korean technology. It was a cloak-and-dagger operation by Pakistan, which concealed the transaction.''

The daily said the government officials confirmed Milholin's account.

The United States knew before the test that North Korea had smuggled the missile technology into Pakistan, the officials said. Washington tried to persuade the Pakistanis not to test the missile, saying it would increase tensions and step up the arms race between Pakistan and India.

Pakistan embassy spokesman Malik Zahoor Ahmed yesterday denied that North Korea had helped his country. ''This is indigenous technology, though technology does not have to come from one source.''

He said, ''The threat we are facing from India is factual.''

North Korea has also supplied its liquid-fuelled missile technology to Iran, Syria and Egypt, Milhollin said.

Such sales represent one of the few lucrative exports from North Korea, one of the world's last Communist nations, whose ''economy is in a very poor shape and whose people are widely thought to be near starvation''.

UNI

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