Shortly Before December 29, 1993: Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto Agrees to Visit North Korea to Facilitate Nuclear Co-operation

Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto agrees to visit North Korea at the request of nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan. Khan asked Bhutto to go because he wanted more powerful missiles to carry nuclear weapons he has designed “into the depths of India.” Bhutto will later say she was shielded from Pakistan’s nuclear program and did not know about Pakistan’s missile capability until Khan told her. She will later describe her reply to Khan’s request: “I wanted it to be known that I would not stand in the military’s way, and when Khan told me that only a country like North Korea could provide the kind of intercontinental missiles we needed, I thought there was no harm in it. But I did tell him I would not give him the money to develop these missiles. I believed in parity. India had not escalated by creating such missiles, I thought, so Pakistan would not do so either.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 244]