Is the military junta in Myanmar trying to acquire a military nuclear capability with North Korean assistance? Or is North Korea trying to shift some of its nuclear facilities to Myanmar to protect them from a possible attack by the US? If either of this scenario is true, is China, which has a strong and active presence in North Korea as well as Myanmar, aware of it? Has it taken up the matter with the two governments? Has it alerted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)?
These questions, among others, come to one’s mind in the wake of a flurry of reports regarding an alleged nuclear relationship between Myanmar and North Korea. These reports hit the international media coinciding with the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which was held at Phuket in Thailand on July 23, 2009.
The meeting was attended among others by Mrs Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, who had proceeded to Thailand after a high-profile visit to India. She told a Thai TV channel in an interview on July 21,2009: “ We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology from North Korea to Myanmar.” She subsequently reverted to the subject at Phuket where she spoke to the media of “ concerns being expressed about co-operation between North Korea and Burma in the pursuit of offensive weapons, perhaps even including nuclear weapons at some point.”
She was not categorical on the question of a possible nuclear relationship between North Korea and Myanmar, but she was on the question of a conventional military relationship between the two countries. Her concerns seemed to be that this might be expanded to cover the military nuclear field, if this has not already happened or is not already happening.
To what extent her concerns were well-founded? Was the reference to this issue by her meant to exercise political pressure on Myanmar and North Korea, both of which attended the ARF meeting--Myanmar at the level of its Foreign Minister and North Korea at the level of an official of its Foreign Office? Was she merely trying to step up the pressure on Myanmar on the question of the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and restoration of democracy and on North Korea on the question of its denuclearization by using the nuclear co-operation allegations or was there something more to it?
The press release issued by the ASEAN Secretariat on the ARF meeting and the media briefing did not contain any reference to the nuclear allegation. Did she raise it at the ARF Foreign Ministers’ meeting or was it confined to her interactions with the media? It is not clear.
Even though Mrs. Clinton confined her remarks only to the alleged co-operation between North Korea and Myanmar and did not refer to the on-going civil nuclear co-operation between Myanmar and Russia, Moscow on its own referred to this subject in response to her remarks in Thailand.
The RIA Novosti news agency of Russia disseminated the following report on July 21: “ Nuclear cooperation between Russia and Myanmar is not in conflict with the Non-proliferation Treaty or IAEA requirements, and will move ahead, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. Andrei Nesterenko's comment came in response to U.S. concerns over the cooperation. However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said earlier on Tuesday that Washington was taking concerns about military cooperation between nuclear-armed North Korea and Myanmar "very seriously," but made no mention of Russia. "Our cooperation with Myanmar is absolutely legitimate and in full compliance with our obligations under the Non-proliferation Treaty and IAEA requirements," Nesterenko said. He added that the IAEA had no problem with Myanmar over its non-proliferation commitments. Russia signed an agreement in 2007 on the construction of a nuclear research center in Myanmar, and it will stand by this agreement, Nesterenko said. The centre will include a 10 MW light-water research reactor.”
Reports of Myanmar’s interest in developing a nuclear research capability started circulating after the nuclear tests carried out by India and Pakistan in May 1998. Before 1998, it had an Atomic Energy Committee, which used to be headed by one of its Ministers in charge of Industries. The military junta introduced an Atomic Energy Law on June 8,1998, within a fortnight of Pakistan’s Chagai nuclear tests.
The interest of the Myanmar military junta in acquiring civil nuclear expertise with Russian assistance came to be known in February,2001. It has had a long history of conventional military relationship with Russia. This relationship was subsequently expanded to cover the civil nuclear field.
In September 2001, the government of Myanmar reportedly informed the IAEA of its plans to acquire a nuclear research reactor. This was followed by a visit to Myanmar by a team of IAEA experts to study whether Myanmar had the required capability to run a research reactor safely. The team reportedly concluded that Myanmar did not have the required safety standards. Despite its negative report, the government decided to go ahead with its exploratory talks with Russia on this subject. Moscow, which must have been aware of the negative findings of the IAEA team, had no hesitation in responding positively to the approach for help from the Myanmar Junta.
When the US troops occupied Afghanistan post-9/11 after expelling the Taliban from power, they reportedly found evidence of contacts between some retired and serving nuclear scientists of Pakistan and Osama bin Laden. They short-listed four names-- retired scientists Sultan Bashiruddin Ahmed Chaudhry and Abdul Majid and serving scientists Sulaiman Assad and Mohammad Mukhtar.
At the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) took into custody the two retired scientists who where interrogated by the FBI. They reportedly admitted having met bin Laden at Kandahar before 9/11, but asserted that their meeting with him was in connection with the work of a humanitarian relief organization which they had founded after retirement. They were released as no evidence of their involvement in any activity relating to the supply of nuclear material or expertise to Al Qaeda was found. However, as a safety measure, the ISI, at the request of the FBI, imposed restrictions on their movement outside their home town. The FBI got the bank accounts of their supposedly humanitarian relief organization frozen by taking up the matter with the anti-terrorism sanctions committee of the UN Security Council.
Sulaiman Assad and Mohammad Mukhtar managed to flee to Myanmar before they could be detained for questioning by the ISI. There was uncorroborated speculation that the ISI did not want them to be questioned by the FBI as they had knowledge of the proliferation activities of Pakistan, particularly about its nuclear and missile supply relationship with North Korea. It was alleged by some in Pakistan that the Myanmar military junta gave them sanctuary at the request of the ISI. There has been no further reliable news about them.
In an article published by the Wall Street Journal on January 3, 2002, Bertil Lintner, its then staff reporter, stated as follows: