Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's statement that his country's former top scientist shipped nuclear technology to North Korea has reinforced US claims that Pyongyang has an enriched uranium programme, the United States State Department has said.
The US has been saying that North Korea needs to dismantle its nuclear programmes -- the plutonium-based programme as well as the highly enriched uranium-based programme, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
"So, I think that President Musharraf's comments concerning provision of centrifuges, centrifuge parts, as well as feed stock for those centrifuges reinforces the idea that there is a highly enriched uranium programme" in North Korea, he told reporters in Washington on Thursday.
"I don't think that this really changes anything from our perspective because we've always said that they (North Korea) have a highly enriched uranium programme," he added.
McCormack also said that the United States believes Musharraf's statement that his government and military did not know of the centrifuge shipments.
"Well, President Musharraf has said that his government and the military did not have knowledge of these shipments and we take him at his word," he said.
The Pakistan president had earlier this week told Japan's Kyodo news agency that A Q Khan, regarded as the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, had provided North Korea with centrifuges and their designs.
The United States, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, China and Russia have held three rounds of talks so far to resolve the crisis over Pyongyang's controversial nuclear programme, but failed to make any breakthrough.