Context of 'May 30, 1998: Pakistan Conducts Last of Six Nuclear Bomb Tests, Plutonium Possibly Used'

Pakistan’s first nuclear test take place underground but shakes the mountains above it. [Source: Associated Press]Pakistan conducts a successful nuclear test. Former Clinton administration official Karl Inderfurth later notes that concerns about an Indian-Pakistani conflict, or even nuclear confrontation, compete with efforts to press Pakistan on terrorism. [US Congress, 7/24/2003] Pakistan actually built its first nuclear weapon in 1987 but kept it a secret and did not test it until this time for political reasons (see 1987). In announcing the tests, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declares, “Today, we have settled the score.” [New York Times, 5/4/2003]

Pakistan conducts the sixth and last of a series of nuclear bomb tests that started two days earlier (see May 28, 1998). Samples taken by US aircraft over the site indicate that the test may have involved plutonium, whereas uranium bombs were used for the other five. After the US learns that the tests are witnessed by Kang Thae Yun, a North Korean involved in that country’s proliferation network (see Early June 1998), and other North Korean officials, it will speculate that the final test was performed by Pakistan for North Korea, which is better known for its plutonium bomb program. Authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark will comment, “In terms of nuclear readiness, this placed North Korea far ahead of where the CIA had thought it was, since [North Korea] had yet to conduct any hot tests of its own.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 278]

A Korean diplomat’s wife named Kim Sa-nae is shot dead outside a guest house associated with Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan in Islamabad, Pakistan. Government officials claim it was a tragic accident and that she was simply caught in a crossfire resulting from a domestic dispute. However, the US discovers that the woman had been shot execution-style and was the wife of Kang Thae Yun, a North Korean who was the economic counsellor at its embassy in Pakistan. Kang is already on the US nuclear watch-list and, based on interviews conducted by the CIA, the US comes to believes that Pakistan’s ISI had her killed because she was preparing to pass on sensitive material about nuclear transfers between Pakistan and North Korea to Western contacts. This theory is supported by the fact that Kang represented the Changgwang Sinyong Corporation (CSC), also known as the North Korean Mining Development Trading Corporation, which had shipped No-dong missiles to Pakistan in 1994 (see January 1994). In addition, defectors have said that the most important job of North Korean embassies around the world is to help efforts to seek nuclear technology and this was Kang’s primary role in Islamabad, where he frequently visited Khan. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 276-277] Kang disappears from Pakistan around the time his wife’s body is flown home to North Korea (see Mid-June 1998).

The US again begins to provide agricultural aid to Pakistan, although its provision had been frozen in the wake of Pakistani nuclear weapons tests in May (see May 28, 1998 and May 30, 1998). The US will again begin to provide military and technological assistance three months later (see October 1998). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 286]

After conducting a series of six nuclear tests (see May 30, 1998), Pakistan announces that it will adhere to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (see September 10, 1996) provided that India reciprocates (see May 11-13, 1998) and the US ends the economic sanctions it has employed against Pakistan since it tested its devices. [Federation of American Scientists, 12/18/2007]

The US again begins to provide Pakistan with military and technological aid, which had been frozen in the wake of Pakistani tests of nuclear weapons in May (see May 28, 1998 and May 30, 1998). The US also froze agricultural aid after the tests, but began to provide it again in July (see July 1998). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 286]