NEW DELHI -- With global attention focused on the U.S.-led face-off with Tehran over the nuclear issue, Pakistan has ingeniously seized the opportunity to give a quiet burial to the worst proliferation scandal in world history, involving the Pakistani transfer of nuclear knowhow and equipment to three states -- Iran, Libya and North Korea.
On May 2, Pakistan announced the closure in the scandal-related case, as it freed from jail the last of the 11 nuclear scientists imprisoned more than two years ago for suspected roles in the covert transfers. The 12th figure, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the ring's alleged mastermind, was granted immunity from prosecution and has been made to stay at home under tight security since his February 2004 televised confession on illicit nuclear dealings.
Contrast the international crisis being contrived over Iran -- a country that would take at least 10 years to acquire nuclear-weapons capability after freeing itself from International Atomic Energy Agency inspections -- with the lack of any response to Pakistan's defiant statement that "as far we are concerned this chapter is closed."