Pakistan bought missile tech from N Korea

"We did not obtain them in exchange for nuclear technology. We bought them with money," she said.

"Through my visit to North Korea in December 1993, we managed to obtain long-range missile technology," Benazir was quoted as saying in a Japanese-language translation.

Benazir was also quoted as telling the Asahi Shimbun in an interview, conducted in London where she lives in exile, that people had proposed to the government that Pakistan sell its nuclear technology to other nations.

But Benazir told Asahi that she had not approved of any sales of nuclear technology while in office.

Asked about speculation that Pakistan had exported nuclear technology, Benazir said it was true that while she was in office there were unspecified people who had proposed this to the government as a way of raising foreign currency, but that she persuaded them not to.

She also denied that Pakistan exported nuclear technology from 1994 to 1995, the Asahi said.

But the former premier added she did not approve of missile development on the basis of the North Korean technology.

It is widely believed that a series of Pakistan's Ghauri missiles are based on North Korea's Nodong missile.

Benazir served as prime minister from December 1988 to August 1990 and from October 1993 to October 1996.

She told Sky News earlier this month she was confident of clearing her name over corruption charges and refused to rule out a return to politics in her homeland.

Asahi said that the original English text of the interview was not immediately available.

In February, Abdul Qadeer Khan, a scientist who is the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, said he had leaked nuclear secrets to North Korea, Libya and Iran but that he had acted independently.