1998: US, Pakistan Establish Group to Discuss Nuclear Proliferation, Makes No Progress Due to Information Withheld

The US and Pakistan establish an experts group at the assistant secretary level to discuss Pakistan’s proliferation of nuclear weapons. The group, which meets at least twice a year for some time, involves Robert Einhorn, assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation from 1999. On the Pakistani side there is an official from the foreign ministry, but it is military officials who are in charge, often General Feroz Khan, head of the Combat Development Directorate and a close family friend of General Pervez Musharraf (who will soon take power in Pakistan). On the first occasion Einhorn says Pakistan may be supplying nuclear technology to North Korea, his counterpart responds furiously and is “incredibly angry” and “deeply chagrined.” However, the expert group makes no headway in stopping Pakistan from engaging in nuclear proliferation because the US is only willing to use non-specific information at the meetings, apparently because it thinks more specific information will reveal it has penetrated Khan Research Laboratories, a key organization in Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation efforts (see 1998). The conversations are so vague that one Pakistani official involved in them wonders if the US really knows anything, or is just trying to bluff the Pakistanis into revealing something. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 280-281]