Pakistan, N Korea may have jointly tested nukes

The report could influence the ongoing six-party talks in Beijing over North Korea's alleged nuclear weapons programme.

Clues to the possible joint nuclear test followed underground nuclear tests carried out by Pakistan in May 1998, the paper said.

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According to the sources, a US military jet sent to sample the air over Baluchistan, Pakistan, after the final nuclear test found traces of plutonium, which surprised US experts since Pakistan had openly stated that it was testing bombs fueled by highly enriched uranium.

The explanations for the plutonium included the possibility that North Korea could have given Pakistan some of its plutonium to conduct a joint test of an atomic weapon, the sources said.

The matter was debated but never settled and was mostly forgotten until Pakistani scientist and architect of the country's atomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, confessed last month that he passed nuclear technology on to North Korea, Libya and Iran.

The daily said the plutonium North Korea may have provided Pakistan for the joint test could have been a form of compensation for Khan's assistance.

If the joint Pakistani-North Korean nuclear test in 1998 is confirmed, it would strongly suggest that North Korea can not only produce plutonium but also build a weapon it has claimed it possesses, the daily said.

AP adds: Although President George W Bush's administration reacted with surprise to Pakistan's nuclear assistance to Iran, the Islamabad government warned the United States that such technology transfers might occur as long as 14 years ago, two former Pentagon officials say.

The threat was conveyed in January 1990 from Pakistan's top general to the administration of Bush's father, but the information doesn't appear to have made its way to President Bill Clinton's administration when it took office three years later, according to interviews by The Associated Press.

In recent weeks, evidence has emerged that Pakistani nuclear aid to Iran began in the mid-1980s but accelerated after 1990 and included transfer of some of Pakistan's most advanced nuclear technology.