India concern over NKorea's secret nuke ties with Pak

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday conveyed to South Korean President Moon Jae-in India's concerns over North Korea's clandestine nuclear and missile ties with Pakistan.

"I told him (Moon) that we were concerned over proliferation links between North-East Asia and South Asia, and, that was why we had a stake in the peace-process between South Korea and North Korea," Modi told media persons after his meeting with Moon at the Hyderabad House.

Moon, who is on a visit to New Delhi, apprised Modi on the progress of the peace process initiated by him and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with the historic April 27 summit in the demilitarised zone on the border between the two neighbours.

The prime minister lauded the South Korean President for his endeavour to bring in lasting peace in the Korean Peninsula.

In a joint statement issued after the meeting on Tuesday, Modi and Moon underlined the "pivotal importance of promoting peace and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction" in South Asia and Korean Peninsula "for the larger benefit of all humanity".

Modi joined Moon in welcoming the recent positive developments facilitated by South Korea, including the historic inter-Korean summits, as well as the US-DPRK summit in Singapore.

"We (Modi and Moon) hope that these developments will contribute to complete denuclearisation as well as lasting peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula," the two leaders stated in the joint statement.

The two leaders pledged to work together to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems, particularly to terrorists and non-state actors.

India has since long been concerned over North Korea's clandestine defence technology cooperation with Pakistan.

New Delhi, according to sources, suspects that Pyongyang-Islamabad secret defence cooperation, which in the mid-1990s led to the supply of Rodong Missiles and technology to Pakistan, is still continuing.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of nuclear program of Pakistan, was in 2003 found to have traded know-how and technology with Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Khan in 2011 made public documents in support of his claim that North Korea had bribed senior officials of Pakistani Army and got them to allow him to share nuclear technology and certain equipment with the pariah nation.

New Delhi received inputs, suggesting that certain nuclear materials supplied to Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission by the Suntech Technology Company Limited of China in the recent years were being diverted to North Korea in violation of the sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.