Nuclear program of Saudi Arabia



Saudi Arabia is not known to have a nuclear weapons program. From an official and public standpoint, Saudi Arabia has been an opponent of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and is a member of the coalition of countries demanding a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East. Studies of nuclear proliferation have not identified Saudi Arabia as a country of concern.

However, over the years there have been media reports of Saudi Arabia's intent to purchase a nuclear weapon from an outside source. In 2003, a leaked strategy paper laid out three possible options for the Saudi government: to acquire a nuclear deterrent, to ally with and become protected by an existing nuclear nation, or to try to reach agreement on having a nuclear-free Middle East. UN officials and weapon specialists have suggested this review was prompted by a distancing of relations with the US, concerns over Iran's nuclear program, and the lack of international pressure on Israel to give up its nuclear weapons.

Nuclear program
Saudi Arabia has denied manufacturing the nuclear weapons under its peaceful civilian nuclear program, the country has allegedly allotted financial funds for its nuclear program, and as well received scientific assistance from various counties, including United States and Pakistan, the two nuclear triads. According to Western media reports, Saudi Arabia also facilitated funds for nuclear programs in the Arab world and was also behind providing financial assistance to boost the physics experiments necessary for developing the nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Deal with United States
In May 2008, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), as part of the United States' vintage Atoms for Peace program, to boost Saudi efforts for a civilian nuclear program.

Pakistan's involvement
Historically, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have extremely cordial relations which sometimes attributed as special relationship. Many in Pakistan's political scientists and historians have summed up that Saudi interests in nuclear technology began in 1970s after Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto introduced Pakistan's leading theoretical physicists (who went on to join the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals), and took the discussion where Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto pointed out the advancements made in the Israeli and the Indian nuclear programme to intimidate the Muslim world, with the Saudi royal government in 1974 after the royal family paid a visit to Pakistan in 1974, as part of 2nd OIC conference, Lahore.

It is widely believed that Saudi Arabia has been a sole financier of Pakistan's own integrated atomic bomb project since 1974, a programme founded by former prime minister Zulfi Bhutto. In 1980s, Chief Martial Law Administrator and President General Zia-ul-Haq paid a state visit to Saudi Arabia where he unofficially told the King that: "Our achievements are yours". This cooperation was allegedly enhanced by socialist prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 1995 and in 1998, the conservative Prime minister Nawaz Sharif took Saudi Arabia in confidence before ordering the nuclear tests (see the codenames Chagai-I and Chagai-II) in Weapon-testing labs-III (WTL) in Chagai remote site in Balochistan Province of Pakistan. In June 1998, the Prime Minister paid a farewell visit to King Fahd and publicly thanked Saudi government for supporting the country after conducting the tests. Soon, the Saudi Minister of Defense Prince Sultan traveled with the Prime minister Sharif where he toured a classified institute, the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) where the leading scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan briefed the Prince and the Prime minister Sharif also, on nuclear physics and the sensitive issues involving the weapon-grade explosives.

Since 1998, the Western diplomats and intelligence agencies have long been rumored to have an agreement whereby Pakistan (would) sell Saudi Arabia warheads and its locally developed nuclear technology if security in the Gulf deteriorate, although both countries sharply denied the existence of such agreement between them. In 2003 it was reported that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had entered a secret agreement on "nuclear cooperation" providing Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons technology in return for access to cheap oil for Pakistan.

In March 2006, the German magazine Cicero reported that Saudi Arabia had since 2003 received assistance from Pakistan to acquire nuclear missiles and warheads. Satellite photos allegedly reveal an underground city and nuclear silos with Ghauri rockets in Al-Sulaiyil, south of the capital Riyadh. Pakistan has denied aiding Saudi Arabia in any nuclear ambitions.

Chinese-Saudi atomic collaboration
On January 2012, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao signed a mutual cooperation deal on nuclear energy with King Abdullah, while Premier Jaobao's visit to Middle East. The details of such cooperation were not fully provided by government-control Saudi Press Agency, but according to Hashim Yamani, president of the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, the kingdom has planned 16 commercial nuclear power reactors by 2030. According to Iranian expert Afshin Molavi of New America Foundation, the Saudi-China relationship is a strategic relationship, as compare to China-Iran relations, in which the relations [of China and Iran] are a transactional one, Molavi commented.

Saudi financing of Iraqi nuclear program
In 1994, Muhammad Khilewi, the second-in-command of the Saudi mission to the United Nations, applied for asylum in the United States. He provided a packet of 10,000 documents that alleged long time Saudi support of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. According to these documents, during the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, the Saudis supported the Iraqi nuclear program with $5 billion on the condition that successful nuclear technology and possibly even nuclear weapons would be transferred to Saudi Arabia. Khilewi obtained asylum in the US, with the consent of Saudi Arabia. The allegations have not been confirmed by any other source, and US officials have stated that they have no evidence of Saudi assistance to Iraqi nuclear development. Saudi officials denied the allegations.

Furthermore, senior Clinton administration officials who were responsible for Mideast affairs at the time Khilewi sought asylum, including Robert Pelletreau of the State Department and Bruce Riedel of the National Security Council, said they found nothing in Khilewi's debriefings to back up the Media reports about a Saudi nuclear program. "There was nothing there," Pelletreau said. (Vartan 2005)

Nuclear sharing with Arab states of the Persian Gulf nuclear programs
Furthermore, the Arab States of the Persian Gulf plan to start their own joint civilian nuclear program, which has raised fears of proliferation. In March 2007, foreign ministers of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council met in Saudi Arabia to discuss progress in plans agreed in December 2006, for a joint civilian nuclear program.

Recent developments
In 2011, Prince Turki al-Faisal, who has served as the Saudi intelligence chief and as ambassador to the United States has suggested that the kingdom might consider producing nuclear weapons if it found itself between the atomic arsenals of Iran and Israel. In 2012, it was confirmed that Saudi Arabia would launch its own nuclear weapons program immediately if Iran successfully developed nuclear weapons. In such an eventuality, Saudi Arabia would start work on a new ballistic missile platform, purchase nuclear warheads from overseas and aim to source uranium to develop weapons-grade material.

Officials in the West believe Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have an understanding in which Islamabad would supply the kingdom with warheads if security in the Gulf was threatened. A Western official told The Times that Riyadh could have the nuclear warheads in a matter of days of approaching Islamabad. Pakistan's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Naeem Khan was quoted as saying that "Pakistan considers the security of Saudi Arabia not just as a diplomatic or an internal matter but as a personal matter." Naeem also said that the Saudi leadership considered Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be one country. Any threats to Saudi Arabia is also a threat to Pakistan. Other vendors were also likely to enter into a bidding war if Riyadh indicated that it was seeking nuclear warheads. Both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have denied the existence of any such agreement. Western intelligence sources have told The Guardian that the Saudi monarchy has paid for up to 60% of the Pakistan's atomic bomb projects and in return has the option to buy five to six nuclear warheads off the shelf.

2013 revelations
In November 2013, a variety of sources told BBC Newsnight that Saudi Arabia had invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects and believes it could obtain nuclear bombs at will. Earlier in the year, a senior NATO decision maker told Mark Urban, a senior diplomatic and defense editor, that he had seen intelligence reporting that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan on behalf of Saudi Arabia are now sitting ready for delivery. In October 2013, Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told a conference in Sweden 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." Since 2009, when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned visiting US special envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross that if Iran crossed the threshold, "we will get nuclear weapons", the kingdom has sent the Americans numerous signals of its intentions. Gary Samore, who until March 2013 was President Barack Obama's counter-proliferation adviser, told BBC Newsnight: "I do think that the Saudis believe that they have some understanding with Pakistan that, in extremis, they would have claim to acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan." Shipments of nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia from Pakistan may have already started based on satellite photos of increased activity at several crossings.

Missile capability
In 1987 it was reported that Saudi Arabia purchased between 50 and 60 Chinese-made CSS-2 intermediate-range ballistic missiles equipped with a high explosive warhead, which have a range of 2,800 km with a payload of either 2,150 or 2,500 kg together with between 10 and 15 transport vehicle systems. The ballistic missiles are the main weapons of the Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force which is a separate branch of Saudi Arabia armed forces. In 2013 the existence of the Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force is an official information published in mass-media.