Washington: The Bush administration has refused to speculate on what the disgraced Pakistani scientist A Q Khan's input may have been in the North Korean nuclear blast.
"I don't know who's talked to him (A Q Khan) lately. But he's out of business and that's a good thing for non-proliferation efforts around the world," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US was still trying to figure out what really happened in North Korea.
“I think it will take a little while to evaluate what happened there. But we have to take the claim seriously because it's a political claim if nothing else that tries to get the bargaining position of being a nuclear power," Rice said in an interview to CNN.
"I think it's very obvious that they were pursuing another path to a nuclear weapon, so called highly-enriched uranium path. But the important thing here is that we now have an opportunity with the International community speaking with one voice to bring world pressure on the North Koreans to make a different choice than they have made over this decade," Rice said.
She also said that leaders of North Korea, Iran and Iraq were looking to the guarantee of nuclear weapons so that the US and allies did not invade them.
"I think we shouldn't even allow them such an excuse," Rice said also making the point that she has never seen the "universal" condemnation of the kind that Pyongyang is now facing.
The Washington headquarters of the State Department, Foggy Bottom, is still saying that it cannot confirm or deny if North Korea's test was nuclear or not.
"Obviously our intelligence experts are looking at all their oscilloscopes and whatever else they look at to determine these various things. There's a lot of different pieces of the puzzle that go into this. At this point, I can't tell you. We'll certainly try to keep you informed," McCormack said at his regular briefing.
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