VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The nuclear black market that supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea is small, tight-knit and appears to have been badly hurt by the exposure of its reputed head, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, diplomats and weapons experts told The Associated Press.
They describe the network that circumvented international controls to sell blueprints, hardware and know-how to countries running covert nuclear programs as involving people closely dependent on one another.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, who founded Pakistan's nuclear program, is emerging as the head of the ring believed to have been the main supplier through middlemen over three continents. A Pakistani government official revealed Monday that Khan has acknowledged in a written statement transferring nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea
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The ring supplying Iran, North Korea and Libya was small - probably no more than around a dozen major players who knew details of what was being sold to whom, said the diplomats. Many of them were probably dependent on Khan for his contacts, first as an employee of Urenco, the West European uranium enrichment consortium and then as the architect of the clandestine weapons program that publicly established Pakistan as a nuclear power in 1998.
The fact that he is now sidelined has, in combination with the world focus on interdiction and monitoring countries under suspicion, probably crippled the supply chain, the diplomats said.
David Albright, a former Iraq nuclear weapons inspector who now runs the Institute for Science and International Security, agreed. With Khan exposed, the ring that accounted for much of the three countries' illicit nuclear hardware and know-how is "now busted up," he said.
"There are still remnants, and that has to be watched, but this is a major victory for nonproliferation," he said from Washington.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAKJUH07QD.html