India raises at UNSC Pakistan's nuclear proliferation linkage with North Korea

India has drawn the attention of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on the proliferation of nuclear and defence technologies from North Korea to Pakistan.

“India would like to reiterate the importance of addressing the proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies related to DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or North Korea) in our region,” New Delhi’s envoy to the United Nations, Ruchira Kamboj, said at the Security Council. “These linkages have an adverse impact on peace and security in the region, including on India.”

Kamboj was presenting the statement on behalf of the Government of India during a meeting of the UNSC on North Korea, which had recently fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile that had flown over Japan.

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"We have noted with concern the reports of ballistic missile launches by the DPRK over the last week. These follow the launch of the intercontinental ballistic missile by the DPRK in March this year, which was discussed in this council, as well as other successive launches,” she said. “These launches constitute a violation of the resolutions of the Security Council relating to the DPRK. They affect the peace and security of the region and beyond," she added.

India called for full implementation of the relevant UNSC resolutions relating to North Korea.

The pariah nation led by Kim Jong-un also launched on Thursday two more short-range ballistic missiles.

India has long been concerned over North Korea's clandestine defence technology cooperation with Pakistan. New Delhi, according to the sources, suspects that Pyongyang-Islamabad secret defence cooperation, which in the mid-1990s led to supply of Rodong Missiles and technology to Pakistan, continues. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of the 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 the 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 the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission by the Suntech Technology Company Limited of China in recent years were being diverted to North Korea in violation of the sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.

“We reiterate our continued support for denuclearization towards peace and security in the Korean peninsula,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN stated.