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Page added on November 7, 2013
Pakistan ‘ready to deliver nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia’
AQ Khan dismisses claims that Pakistan-made nuclear weapons are ready for delivery to Saudi Arabia as part of its efforts to counter Iran’s atomic programme
The founding father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme has dismissed reports that his country has reached a secret deal to provide Saudi Arabia with warheads in the event that Iran produces a bomb.
Rumours of a deal have long circulated in the Middle East, amid Saudi anxiety at its principal regional rival Iran developing a “Shia bomb”.
Citing American intelligence reports and a former Pakistani security officer, BBC Newsnight reported that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan for Saudi Arabia were ready for delivery.
But AQ Khan, who has admitted running a proliferation ring supplying secrets to Iran and Libya, said neither Pakistan nor Saudi Arabia had anything to gain – and a lot to lose by being ostracised by the international community and slapped with sanctions.
“Saudis may be ‘camel drivers’ but not idiots,” said Dr Khan, who remains a hero to many Pakistanis.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also dismissed the allegations as “baseless”, as did General Hamid Gul, a former head of the ISI intelligence service.
Saudi officials have long told their American allies that they planned to obtain atomic weapons if Iran went nuclear.
The latest reports suggests they could be ready even sooner.
Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told a conference in Sweden last month that if Iran got the bomb, “the Saudis will not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring”.
Pakistan declared itself as a nuclear armed state in 1998 with its first test.
It has never signed up non-proliferation agreements and has an expanding arsenal, with some estimates saying it has as many as 110 nuclear weapons with enough fissile material for more than 200.
The security of its warheads has long been of concern to the US, which has even developed plans to seize the weapons if it believed terrorists were closing on the country’s nuclear facilities.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have longstanding ties and the Kingdom has financed a range of infrastructure projects, mosques and defence contracts.
Newsnight said a senior Pakistani, speaking on background terms, had confirmed the broad nature of the deal and said: “What did we think the Saudis were giving us all that money for? It wasn’t charity.”
Gary Samore, who served as President Barack Obama’s counter-proliferation adviser until earlier this year, also told Newsnight: “I do think that the Saudis believe they have some understanding with Pakistan, that in extremis they would have claim to acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan.”
However, such a deal would have dire costs for both countries. An alternative might be for Pakistan to offer Saudi Arabia protection under its “nuclear umbrella”.
A recent report by the Centre for a New American Security, concluded that both countries would face huge problems with a proliferation deal, undermining ties with the US and jeopardising billions of dollars in assistance.
“Despite longstanding rumors suggesting the existence of a clandestine Saudi-Pakistani nuclear deal, there are profound security and economic disincentives cutting against Riyadh’s motivation to seek a bomb from Islamabad – as well as considerable, though typically ignored, strategic and economic reasons for Pakistan to avoid an illicit transfer,” it concluded.
9 Comments on "Pakistan ‘ready to deliver nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia’"
Arthur on Thu, 7th Nov 2013 2:20 pm
1517-1648 was a murderous period in European history, when Protestants wanted to escape from Catholicism and spend less time on praying and building cathedrals and more on economic activity. The present day supremacy of Anglosphere is a direct consequence of that schism.
Now it looks that Islam is going to experience a similar schism of it’s own, with 1400 years delay.
This will only increase any Iranian desire to get a bomb of it’s own.
Total nightmare.
bobinget on Thu, 7th Nov 2013 2:43 pm
If Iran needed an excuse to forge ahead with its nuclear program, they certainly have it now.
It has long been known KSA financed Pakistan’s “Islamic Bomb” . Now, apparently delivery has been requested. Financially (oil) strapped Pakistan has zero choice but to fill N. warhead orders.
Arthur brings up an important point. The difference between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and today has to be a Nuclear elephant.
Oh BTW, oil prices are down slightly this morning. It seems everyone is a Twitter.
J-Gav on Thu, 7th Nov 2013 7:54 pm
Ye-eah … Re-read the last paragraph, folks.
The Sunni-Shia rift is real and growing. As a side note, Shia (not Sharia) law prohibited them from engaging in politics for the 1st 2-3 centuries of their existence (back in the Middle Ages). Then they got to feeling kinda ‘left out’ I guess. They no doubt still feel that way since, despite their overwhelming cultural contribution to Islam over the centuries (architecture, art, philosophy, literature, astronomy …) they’ve practically always been shunted out into the margins of the Muslim world. This abcess has yet to be lanced. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen through nuclear conflict.
NB : Though I’ve read the Coran and quite a lot of Islamic philosophy and literature, I want to make it clear that I do not subscribe to Coranic or Hadith teachings. Any more than I subscribe to Christian or Jewish ‘sacred’ texts as useful moral guidelines in life. At least not beyond the Golden Rule: “Do not do unto others … etc.” Institutional religions may yet contribute to the downfall of our species almost as much as corporatocracy and political/economic corruption.
DC on Thu, 7th Nov 2013 8:59 pm
Its always left out in articles like this, that Iran has made no hostile moves of ANY kind towards its neighbors. Everything I see about Iran tells me it has a practical and pragmatic approach to getting along with its neighbours, even the ones being used as a launching pad for attacks against it. Yea, im look at YOU Saudi Arabia.
Iran does not conduct military drills near its neighbours, mass troops on boarders, scramble fighters regularly, conducting mock ‘bombing practice’, is actually by world and regional standards-not a big military spender. Nor is there any evidence they are actively supporting insurrection in bordering countries. Iran does provide some support to it allies, just like everyone else, but most of this support seems of a defensive nature-not geared toward conquest or fomenting general instability (cough United States).
The idea that (we) in the west keep spreading that Arabs are attracted to idea of spreading obscure sectarian ideology to its neighbors backed by the threat of using atomic warheads to do it seem,at there core, very suspect to me.
Plantagenet on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 12:13 am
DC’s claim that iran has made “no hostile moves” towards its neighbors just isn’t true. DC must have missed the stories about Iran sending its own Islamic Guards and its proxy troops in Hamas to fight in Syria. Syria is a neighbor of Iran, and Iran is deeply involved in the war there right now.
BillT on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 4:21 am
Who was it who questioned my prophesy of a possible nuclear war in the near future? I think it just moved a bit closer. Next will we read that North Korea is sending one to Iran? Or, maybe the word is ‘sent’? We shall see. All I am thinking about now is the category 5 coming my way this evening.
Arthur on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 11:49 am
DC must have missed the stories about Iran sending its own Islamic Guards and its proxy troops in Hamas to fight in Syria. Syria is a neighbor of Iran, and Iran is deeply involved in the war there right now.
But not before the State Department initiated the ‘civil war’ by subsidizing ca. 70,000 Jihad-is to the tune of $100/day, to overthrow the secular Assad regime. The Iranians know that if Assad falls, Tehran is going to be the next target. And that’s why they fight, from a position of defense, trying to maintain the status quo.
bobinget on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 6:40 pm
While Plantagenet is correct Iran did send troops to Syria, those troops are there to defend the current government. Not to say that regime is worth defending against paid Saudi fighters but HELPING a neighbor fend off a revolution may be odious or not according to one’s view but it most certainly NOT an invasion.
This leaked story about ‘selling nukes’ to Saudi Arabia is intended to kill off ongoing ‘peace talks’ between Iran vs the US, Israel and KSA. Never before has the expression ‘strange bedfellow’ been more apropos.
First of all the US is beholding too KSA for oil.
Not as you might expect, exported oil.
In case anyone forgot we are still at war in the Middle East and will be for the foreseeable future. US or any high tech armed forces are entirely oil dependent.
It is my firm belief Israel will over-reach and commence bombing Iran before the years end.
If we are to defend Israel AND Saudi Arabia from nasty Iranians, Russians, Chinese, we are certainly going to need a ready source of jet and tank fuel.
Press avoidance.
When NOTHING has been said about an Islamic Bomb in Saudi hands at the same time we have “Forbidden”
Iran such a weapon, never mentioning Israel’s over 100 N. warheads or three plus nuclear missile capable submarines.
BOTH the Saudis AND Israelis are upset with the US peacemaking activity for differing reasons.
In the ME “an enemy of my enemy is a “friendenemy”.
(old Arabic)
Israel may well attack Iran with nuclear ‘bunker buster’
bombs. In all the war confusion this fact will be overlooked by everyone but of course the Iranians knee deep in fall-out. Every Iranian enrichment site is a potential target, As such, isotopes will be raining down across the region for weeks.
Do Saudis actually have N weapons or not? Immaterial. Israeli dirty bombing will kill just any chance for peace in the region for another hundred years.
Arthur on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 7:42 pm
bobinget, hopefully you are too pessimistic. Currently talks are going on in Geneva, even with Russians and possibly Chinese involved. It is obvious that the new Iranian government wants to do business, yet at the same time maintain the right to enrich uranium themselves. At the moment NOBODY has an interest in Iran getting a nuke, not even the Russians and Chinese. Hopefully the big powers can enforce watertight verification that Iran is not going nuclear.