1996: Pakistan Tells North Korea It Cannot Pay for Missiles, Offers Uranium Enrichment Plant as Payment; Israel, US Aware of Discussions

Pakistan, which owes North Korea US$ 40 million for No-dong missiles it has purchased (see December 29, 1993 and Shortly After and November 19-24, 1995), tells the North Koreans it does not have the money and cannot pay for them. Instead, the Pakistanis offer North Korea a uranium enrichment plant, a proposal first discussed by Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan and North Korea’s foreign minister Kim Yong-nam in 1992 (see August 1992). Israeli intelligence is monitoring Khan’s procurement network and learns of the proposal. It informs the US government, but the US does not show any special interest. General Moshe Ya’alon, who will later be chief of staff in the Israeli Defense Force, will comment: “I remember saying to the Americans some time in 1995 or 1996, ‘How to do think Pakistan is going to pay for all those No-dong missiles?’ But I was shouting myself hoarse. Nobody wanted to know.” According to North Korean defector Hwang Jang-yop (see 1997), the deal between Pakistan and North Korea is concluded in the summer of 1996 during a visit to Korea by a technical delegation from Khan Research Laboratories. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 256-257, 281]