Pakistan's top nuclear authority Saturday rejected claims by disgraced atomic scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan that the army and President Pervez Musharraf sent centrifuges to North Korea in 2000. Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai, head of the Strategic Planning Division (SPD), told a select group of reporters there was “enough evidence” about the proliferation network that Khan had run from 1987. Kidwai reiterated that there had been no involvement by the army, Musharraf, SPD or the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency in the transfer of centrifuges to North Korea. The briefing followed media interviews with Khan in which he made the claim which Kidwai said was damaging the national interest. “Technically, yes it happened in his (Musharraf) tenure, but giving an impression that he or the army was aware or supervised it is wrong,” Kidwai said. Meanwhile, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry insisted Saturday that its nuclear proliferation case was closed. “The nuclear proliferation issue is a closed case,” Mohammed Sadiq, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said.
