Musharraf Confirms A.Q. Khan Sold Centrifuges to North Korea

I wonder what Glenn Kessler and Dafna Lizner will say about this:

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said yesterday that he believed that a Pakistani nuclear expert who ran the world’s largest proliferation ring exported “probably a dozen” centrifuges to North Korea to produce nuclear weapons fuel.

But no bomb designs, as far as we know. Yes, fine. So can we now let go of the fiction that NK isn’t enriching uranium, a fiction that’s even impervious to confession?

The Pakistani leader’s comments about the results of the interrogations of the expert, A. Q. Khan . . . are significant because they tend to confirm the accusations American intelligence officials made against North Korea in 2002.

But fear not, the Unification Ministry will say, on cue:

A dozen centrifuges would not be enough to produce a significant amount of bomb-grade uranium. But American officials say they would have enabled North Korea to copy the design and build their own.

And yes, the timing is certainly interesting. David Sanger has really been on top of this story.

I give less credit to this Times story on the six-party talks, which fails to note the significant fact that North Korea was the only one of the six nations that wouldn’t sign the statement agreed by the other parties at the last round.