New York: Pakistan was a major supplier of critical equipment for North Korea's newly-revealed clandestine nuclear weapons programme in return for missiles it could use to counter India's nuclear arsenal, US intelligence officials were quoted as saying.

The equipment, which may include gas centrifuges used to create weapons-grade uranium, appears to have been part of a "barter deal" beginning in late 1990s in which North Korea supplied Pakistan with the missiles, the officials told the 'New York Times'.

"What you have here is a perfect meeting of interests, the North Koreans had what the Pakistanis needed, and the Pakistanis had a way for Kim Jong II to restart a nuclear programme we had stopped," said one official familiar with the intelligence.

The paper quoted a Pakistan Embassy spokesman, Asad Hayauddin, as saying that it was "absolutely incorrect" to accuse Pakistan of providing nuclear weapons technology to North Korea.

"We have never had an accident or leak or any export of fissile material or nuclear technology or knowledge," he said.

The White House on October 17 said it would not discuss Pakistan's role or any other intelligence information, the 'Times' reported.

The trade between Pakistan and North Korea appears to have occurred around 1997, roughly two years before Pervez Musharraf took power in a bloodless coup.

However, the relationship appears to have continued after Musharraf became President, and there is some evidence that a commercial relationship extended beyond September 11 terror attacks on the US, the daily said.

PTI