CORRECTED: Japanese firms played key role in Pakistan`s nuclear program

ISLAMABAD/TOKYO, Feb. 15 Kyodo -
(EDS: RECASTING 14TH GRAF WITH CORRECTION, ADDING 15TH GRAF)
Japanese companies played a key role in supplying equipment used for Pakistan's
nuclear development, investigations by Kyodo News in Islamabad and Tokyo have
revealed in recent days.
Comments by Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan and former
employees of the companies reveal in detail for the first time how leading
Japanese manufacturers knowingly and unknowingly helped Pakistan acquire
nuclear capability and were incorporated into its supply framework.
Pakistan began work on its nuclear program after the 1974 nuclear test by
India, and Khan was put in charge of Pakistan's uranium enrichment program in
1976. Another organization, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, was also
given the job to develop the plutonium route to a nuclear weapon.
From then on, Khan's organization, Khan Research Laboratories, and the Pakistan
Atomic Energy Commission were working on parallel programs -- the uranium
enrichment route and the plutonium route -- to give Pakistan nuclear
capability. Both the organizations imported sizable amounts of equipment and
materials into Pakistan.
Uranium enrichment is a technically demanding process that requires
sophisticated equipment to transform natural uranium into nuclear fuel.
Investigations revealed that both Khan and the head of the Pakistan Atomic
Energy Commission visited Japan at least once in the 1980s to shop for their
respective programs.
Khan, dubbed the ''father of Pakistan's nuclear program,'' told Kyodo News in a
written interview that Khan Research Laboratories acquired a wide range of
machines, laboratory equipment and metal products from Japan.
One of the major acquisitions was the import of ring magnets, a key device
required to manufacture centrifuges used for enriching uranium, Khan said.
Like several other countries ''Japan was also a very, very important country
for our imports,'' he said.
Khan identified several Japanese companies from which materials, machines and
equipment was acquired.
According to Khan, a mid-sized Tokyo-based trading company, Western Trading,
which went bankrupt in 2004, acted as the point of contact with Khan's side.
Mian Mohammad Farooq, a late Pakistani businessman who headed a Pakistani
trading company, brokered several important transactions for Pakistan's nuclear
program with Japan and several other countries. Western Trading entered into
business relations in the late 1970s with Farooq, who is believed to have put
Khan Research Laboratories in touch with Western Trading.
According to a former employee of Western Trading who spoke on condition of
anonymity, the company in the late 1980s exported to Pakistan at least 6,000
ring magnets made by a major Japanese metals producer. Khan also confirmed the
imports from Japan.
The former employee said he never heard what the magnets would be used for.
''As a businessmen of a trading company, the priority is to sell goods,'' he
said, but hastened to add, ''of course I always obeyed the export laws.''
Khan also told Kyodo News that another key purchase was an electron microscope
from Japan Electron Optics Laboratory. An electron microscope is required for
testing the strength of the alloys used in the manufacture of centrifuges.
A former JEOL employee of who spoke on condition of anonymity said two such
microscopes and an X-ray diffractometer were sold to Khan's organization for
more than 60 million yen. In the interview, he clearly indicated that he was
aware of the nuclear nature of the work in which Khan was involved.
''Khan said he wanted to buy a JEOL electron microscope,'' the former employee
said. ''The negotiations went smoothly.''
In Tokyo, JEOL confirmed in response to a query by Kyodo News that it had
exported an electron microscope to Khan Research Laboratories in the 1980s but
said it was unaware of the work in which the organization was involved.
Kyodo News was also able to confirm that another company, Hitachi Seiki, which
went bankrupt in 2002, also supplied equipment such as automatic lathes to Khan
through Western Trading.
In addition, maraging steel, beryllium thin sheets, beryllium-copper rods and
other metal alloys having nuclear applications were also acquired from Japanese
firms, according to Khan.
A Pakistani court earlier this month declared Khan a free man, abolishing his
five-year house arrest and other government-imposed restrictions.
Khan, who headed Pakistan's nuclear enrichment program from 1976 to 2001,
confessed in 2004 to transferring nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North
Korea, but he later retracted the confession and claimed he had been framed and
made a scapegoat.
He was pardoned in 2004 by then President Pervez Musharraf in consideration of
his services to Pakistan's nuclear program, but remained under virtual house
arrest.
According to the court verdict, Khan is now free to talk to the media and
express his views in public, free to carry out research and free to move across
the country so long as he informs the government of his movements in advance,
for security reasons.
(Reporting was contributed by Toshihisa Onishi, Takeshi Tsuchiya and Naoki Yoshida
from Tokyo.)
==Kyodo