Pakistan vows to match Indian arms buildup

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf (L) speak with staff members during a press conference in Seoul yesterday. Musharraf said his country was fully justified in developing missiles and nuclear weapons to counter the threat posed by India. Concluding a three-day visit to South Korea, Musharraf said Pakistan would never compromise on national security. PHOTO: AFP

Musharraf, wrapping up a three-day state visit to South Korea, also restated his earlier denials that Pakistan had traded its nuclear weapons expertise for North Korean missile technology. The communist North says it has atomic capability.

Musharraf told a news conference that peace with his giant neighbor India was maintained by keeping a balance of forces.

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"This balance of forces was tilted -- and imbalance created -- when India went for the nuclear and missile forces, and similar imbalance is being created now through massive acquisition of arms by our adversary, India," he said without elaborating.

"We will respond to this imbalance, we will rectify this imbalance in the future through all means possible," said the army general, who took power in a bloodless 1999 coup.

Musharraf said it was the threat from India that had driven Pakistan to conduct its first nuclear tests in 1998. He said Islamabad had never proliferated nuclear technology to Seoul's communist neighbor although it had bought North Korean missiles.

He said reported visits to North Korea by nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, revered by many in Pakistan as the father of the country's nuclear bomb, were connected to purchases of conventional short-range missiles.

"We have purchased these missiles from North Korea. We have also had a transfer of technology of these missiles. We now manufacture ourselves these missiles in the same organization that Dr. A.Q. Khan headed," he said.

"Therefore, I don't know how many times he has visited, but maybe his interaction was in this respect," Musharraf said. He said Pakistan now had no arms collaboration with North Korea.

Some media reports say Khan made a dozen trips to North Korea. A Pakistani firm Khan once headed was slapped with US sanctions last March, after Washington accused it of transferring nuclear-capable missiles from North Korea to Pakistan.

AP adds: Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said yesterday that his country obtained short-range missiles and technology from North Korea, but has not given the communist state any nuclear weapons secrets in return.

The transfer of missile technology between the two countries is over, and Pakistan now makes those missiles on its own, Musharraf said in a news conference in Seoul.

So today, "there is absolutely no interaction with North Korea whatsoever on any defence related matters," he said.