WASHINGTON: Pakistan may have a “possible clandestine reactor,” that could be used for tritium production (for nuclear weapons) and it may have completed a new labs plutonium extraction plant near Rawalpindi, a special report by the Carnegie foundation’s nonproliferation expert, Leonard Spector, says.
The report says China is believed to have provided “essential weapons related nuclear aid directly to Pakistan, including the design of the nuclear device detonated in China’s fourth nuclear test and uranium enrichment know how.”
Spector tries to prove that not only Pakistan but also India, Brazil, Argentina and Iraq have depended critically on the acquisition of nuclear material from countries with more advanced nuclear programs. Spector says that there has been “widespread speculation that Pakistan might be prepared to share its knowledge of nuclear weaponry or nuclear weapons themselves with other Islamic states.
Though Pakistan is not known to have done this, it has reportedly begun training Iranian nuclear specialists and may have provided additional nuclear aid to that country.”
Since the late seventies, Pakistan has relied heavily on covertly obtained technology and equipment to build its uranium enrichment facility at Kahuta, which apparently began producing weapons grade uranium in 1986® the report says.
The assistance included design technology for the gas centrifuges that are the heart of the Kahuta plant; essential electronic components and measuring equipment, special managing steel for the construction of the centrifuges and vacuum pumps and other equipment for handling uranium hexafluoride gas within the facility, some of which hardware was specially designed to handle weapons grade material.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 27, 1990
