Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans yesterday castigated a Pakistani court order to end the house arrest of former top nuclear scientist and proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan, Asian News International reported (see GSN, Sept. 25).
Khan confessed in 2004 to running a nuclear smuggling ring that provided sensitive nuclear technology and materials to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
"It involves the issue of security, security of materials, security of technology, so that they don’t export any information or component of the weapons in [the] future in an uncontrolled fashion,” Evans said at the end of a meeting in India of the International Commission on Nuclear Proliferation and Disarmament.
The commission, which Evan's co-chairs, is working on a report intended to help set the agenda for the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference. A follow-up report would examine the meeting's outcome (Shreeraj Gudi, Asian News International I/Thaindian News, Oct. 4).
India, Israel and Pakistan can play a crucial role in nonproliferation efforts because they obtained nuclear weapons without ever signing the treaty, Evans said.
"It is extremely important, if both India and Pakistan indicate at least on signing NPT and if the U.S. and China were to ratify, particularly the [Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty] and then other countries would follow suit,” he said. “Let get on with the business and get into values and let’s get both India and Pakistan signed for NPT” (Shreeraj Gudi, Asian News International II/Thaindian News, Oct. 4).