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S Arabia financed Pak nuke programme: Ex- US DIA official

S Arabia financed Pak nuke programme: Ex- US DIA official

Author: Press Trust of India
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: November 10, 2002
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_99722,0005.htm

After reports about North Korea supplying nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan, a former official of the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) has said that Saudi Arabia has been financing Islamabad's nuclear and missile programme purchases from China.

Quoting reports, DIA's senior China analyst Thomas Woodrow said in a research paper that "Saudi Arabia has been involved in funding Pakistan's missile and nuclear programme purchases from China, which has resulted in Pakistan becoming a nuclear weapon-producing and proliferating state".

There was also a probability that Riyadh was "buying nuclear- capability from China through a proxy state with Pakistan serving as the cut-out", Woodrow said in his recent paper, entitled The Sino- Saudi Connection.

Stating that Saudi Defence Minister Prince Sultan had "toured the uranium-enrichment plant and missile production facilities in Kahuta" in Pakistan just after the May 1999 nuclear tests, he said the Saudi Minister "may also have been present in Pakistan" during the test- launch of its nuclear-capable Ghauri missile.

"If Riyadh's influence over Pakistan extends to its nuclear programmes, Saudi Arabia could rapidly become a de facto nuclear power through a simple shipment of missiles and warheads," the former DIA officer said.

He said: "What in essence has happened is that Saudi Arabia has given money to China for Pakistan's missile and nuclear programmes".

On North Korea supplying nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan, he said Chinese technicians working at Pakistan's nuclear and missile facilities "almost certainly had to have known about these (technology) transfers".

"Beijing deliberately kept this information hidden from Washington. These events underscored how America's historically lackadaisical attitude towards Chinese nuclear and missile proliferation has come back to haunt it," the former Defence Intelligence Agency officer said.

On the Sino-Saudi connection, he said the involvement of the "Sultan branch of Saudi royal family" in the missile dealings with Beijing was done "for the money and possibly to gain access to an Islamic bomb".

Beijing would "assiduously attempt to enlarge its toehold of influence in Persian Gulf as its oil appetite grows" and its relations with Saudi Arabia remain a key component of its strategy, he said.
 


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