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When the United States told its Asian allies over a month ago that North Korea exported nuclear material to Libya it was omitting a vital part of the information, the Washington Post reported Sunday. It was not North Korea but Pakistan that exported uranium hexafluoride, a substance needed for uranium enrichment, to Libya, and when Pakistan bought it from North Korea Washington had no particular objections, the paper said. Despite being fully aware of this, Washington fabricated the story of a direct sale from Pyongyang to Tripoli to step up pressure on North Korea, the report said.
The nature of the incident differs greatly depending which of the two countries - Pakistan or Libya - North Korea sold uranium hexafluoride to. Given that Pakistan is a de facto nuclear power, Pyongyang's export of nuclear material to Pakistan can hardly be seen as a grave development. But if Pyongyang exported nuclear material to Libya, which was at the time under suspicion of developing nuclear weapons, that would by far be the North's most dangerous nuclear proliferation venture yet.
Even while reporting that North Korea exported uranium hexafluoride to Libya, some U.S. media said the source of the material was more likely Pakistan. The crux of the matter then is whether Washington distorted the information on purpose.
If the U.S. administration really offered false information to the Korean, Japanese and Chinese governments in an attempt to put more pressure on North Korea to return to six-party talks, Washington's credibility and morality would be in tatters. It is a reality that America has a vast amount of intelligence about North Korea. If it offers that intelligence to its allies only after tweaking it to suit its own ends, it would deal a severe blow to mutual trust, the foundation of cooperation.
The U.S. National Security Council's Asia director Michael Green, during his visit here in February, told Seoul of intelligence involving the North's exports of nuclear material. The government must make the information it received from the United States public, if only to dispel any doubts that we were really misled and prevent distrust between the two allies from growing.
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