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Riyadh May Have Backed Pakistani Nuclear Plan
Saudi Arabia may have eased the way for Pakistan to conduct its first nuclear weapons test in 1998 by promising to reduce the effects of the international sanctions that were expected to follow, the Financial Times reported yesterday (see GSN, July 30). A week before Pakistan conducted its first nuclear test, a Saudi prince told then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that Saudi Arabia would provide up to 50,000 barrels of oil per day to Pakistan to help offset the impact of the sanctions expected to be imposed after the test (see GSN, Oct. 22, 2003). A former aide to Sharif said the offer was conveyed on behalf of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, the kingdom’s de facto leader. “It is possible that Pakistan may still have conducted its nuclear tests without the Saudi oil. But the tests would have been done with the knowledge that the economic fallout was going to be far more severe,” the former aide said. Such Saudi assistance to Pakistan has led to concern of nuclear cooperation between the two countries, according to the Times. While that cooperation may not entail Pakistan providing nuclear weapons technology to Saudi Arabia so the kingdom can establish its own weapons program, according to experts, it might give Saudi Arabia the option to in effect borrow Pakistani nuclear weapons. “The argument that they have options on Pakistan’s arsenal are more likely,” a U.S. official said. Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, though, have denied engaging in nuclear weapons cooperation. “We’ve never given money aimed at nuclear research and development and so we never asked or received privileges to nuclear weapons programs,” former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Feisal said (Financial Times, Aug. 4).
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