North Korea — A fresh non NPT guest of tri-states

So here comes North Korea – our partner Non NPT nuclear weapon state along with India and Israel – with overt Nuclear arms on display now. There has been a number of speculations about North Korea under the progression of Nuclear weapons which has lately become evident after the series of nuclear tests induced by North Korea.

History of Korea is weird. After the end of second world war, Japan who was sitting in Korea escaped from there. It gave Soviets a chance to encroach inside Korea. There was just one “Korea” – without any territorial division of North and South. After Soviets encroachment inside Korea, United States took a notice. Later, it was decided between United States and Soviets to divide the country into two and the North portion would be lead by Soviets whereas the South portion would be lead by United States. Soviets established a communist dictatorship in North Korea and United States held Presidential election in the South. After forming the government, both the forces, Soviets and United States, vacated Korea.

Before leaving the place, Soviets did play a smart card – a stratagem – by training North Korean’s army, simultaneously also made them well-equipped. But then, the South Korean army was weaker than the North Koreans.

Both South and North wanted to reunify once again, as South wanted to establish democracy whereas North wanted to establish communism. The war broke out between North and South Korea in sometime – making United States to intervene again by means of United Nations. This was one deadliest war fought amongst the North and South. South was helped by United States, UK, South Africa, Canada and few other countries. Millions of people including civilians and servicemen died. United Nations kept on advocating for a truce. Ultimately, it happened. More or less, 50 years back at the time of truce, no one knew 50 years after the truce both South and North would be at war technically.

What Pakistan has to do with all this stuff is the question. A number of speculations circled globally that Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto gave a part of nuclear technology details to Pyongyang in exchange of nuclear-capable long range missiles. Washington also claims that Dr Abdul Qadir Khan and his team has a good role in transportation of nuclear technology to North Korea – providing them with an alternative way of manufacturing nuclear fuel. It sometimes seems paradoxical since Benazir at several occasions critically evaluated the performance of Dr Abdul Khan. Anyway, to my knowledge, Dr Abdul Qadir Khan has already confessed of helping North Korea with the knowledge and approval of senior military commanders, and General Pervez Musharraf.

Finishing with the relevance of Pakistan’s role in assisting North Korea for Nuclear technology – and coming towards the current scenario, we see that North Korea has squarely issued threats to United States and other countries by saying that a harsh and powerful counter-attack will be given lest any hostile attack on North Korean’s vessels or Nuclear Reactors takes place.

Study says, China and Russia seems wary about this whole issue while United States and Japan are believing to have a hard-line strategy against North Korea.

While studying all this, I had a chance to laugh on one of the statement that goes like: North Korea is believed to have more than 800 ballistic missiles, including long-range missiles which could one day strike the US.

The keywords to laugh at are “which could one day strike the US”. It made me recall some of the past events pertained to United States conceitedness when Nuclear weapons were mistakenly loaded aboard on B-52 and flown over several states for two to three hours. And the other event when US Air Farce crew members fell asleep while holding classified launch code devices that can launch the setup missiles very easily. Was that a joke? Can United States be more lunatic than this — and than it claims that United States is endangered by North Korean missiles while US itself has gone through multiple hazardous events which compelled US Defence Secretariat to have hiccups galore.

Anyway, let’s see where the wind blows. What North Korea has planned to do further and what would be the role of United States regarding the issue in the days to come — is awaited.

Youm-e-Takbeer — A day of pride for Pakistan

28th May 1998 — a day of pride for Pakistan when Pakistan entered in the list of nuclear countries by carrying out 5 overt nuclear tests at Chaghi, in Balochistan. It was apparently a direct and straight response to Indian nuclear tests carried out just two weeks prior to Pakistan’s nuclear test. This day is officially tagged by Pakistani Government as Youm-e-Takbeer.

Due to this perceptible event, Pakistan became a target of international community – was criticized heavily by many countries. Economic sanctions were also imposed on Pakistan by United States. Pakistan claimed that its nuclear program is merely for self-defense just like any other country including India.

The history of Pakistan’s nuclear program dates back to early 1970’s – the era of the then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto due to his candid nature of governance iterated that if India was to get nuclear technology for self-defense then Pakistan wouldn’t lag behind – will get nuclear technology for self-defense too. His famous sentence “We will eat grass, but will make Atom Bomb” is well cited in the Chronicles of Pakistan’s Nuclear Program.

There has been a number of controversies regarding Dr. Abdul Qadir Khan as a national hero – and a founder of Pakistan’s nuclear program. Things always get pretty much hazy in such events – 100 mouths and 100 talkses. I wouldn’t go into any of the controversy rather. There has been quite a number of names juxtaposed to Dr AQ Khan’s name regarding the 28th May nuclear tests. These names kept on splattering from the Pandora box time to time.

This is the legacy of Pakistan that the top-secret nuclear lab is still named as “A Q Khan Lab”, but the person holding this name is under the siege. It is an open truth that he didn’t act alone, but he has again sacrificed for Pakistan and took all the blame we all know that. Shame on us. At this moment, I can’t recall the name of any country or any individual’s name from the history of this millennium who took such a blame for his country. Could any one of you name any other country or individual? Or even any country which left any such example making their heroes as zeros?

Anyway, at this particular event – rather than disputing on the name and role of Dr AQ Khan, I think we should equally pay tribute to all the scientists – the whole team involved in the inducing of nuclear tests including Dr. AQ Khan. All the members of PAEC and KRL are our true heroes. This nation owes them a big tribute, not only we – the living one, but our generations to come too.

Pakistan Zindabad.