New Delhi: With Washington having turned a "blind eye" towards the long-drawn Pakistan-North Korea nuclear nexus till it recently snowballed into a major international issue, reports here say that Islamabad had only this summer despatched a large volume of special aluminium to Pyongyang for its uranium enrichment programme.

Quoting reports, official sources on December 6 said 47 tonnes of special aluminium, which was acquired by Kahuta-based Abdul Qadir Khan Research Laboratory (AQKRL) from a British firm in Blackburn, was flown to Pyongyang on board a Shaheen Airline flight in July this year.

In a recent report, the 'New York Times' had also rejected Islamabad's claims that it had ended its exchanges with North Korea and reported that US satellites had spotted a Pakistani plane picking up North Korea's missile parts as recently as last summer.

The daily also asked Washington to "make it plain" to President Pervez Musharraf that "continued behaviour of this sort will not be tolerated".

The sources quoted US intelligence reports as saying that Pakistani assistance to North Korean nuclear programme "continued until three months ago" and added that Washington had "turned a blind eye" towards the nexus for so long.

Pakistan's own nuclear programme has been "pursued unhindered" despite its adverse economic conditions largely due to liberal financial aid made available by some Arab states, the sources said.

They said there were reports, which indicated, that in late 1990s, Pyongyang had approached Islamabad for design information and technical support to set up a centrifuge enrichment plant with a view to producing fissile material for its nuclear weapons programme.

Some reports also hinted that there could have been a barter arrangement between the two countries on their respective nuclear programmes, they said, adding that it was due to such an arrangement that Pakistan assisted North Korea in procuring essential requirements.

Noted nuclear scientist and the head of AQKRL, after whom the laboratory has been named, had visited North Korea at least 12 times in the 1990s.

Besides high-level Pak military delegations also visited North Korean Scud missile and air defence factories throughout the 1990s, while North Korean delegations toured Pakistani nuclear and military facilities, they added.

PTI