Saudi Arabia, Pakistan in N-talks, US media insists
By Our Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Oct 25: Despite a strong denial by all three parties — the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — reports in the US media continue to claim that Islamabad and Riyadh have been involved in nuclear talks for sometime.
A report published in the US newspapers on Saturday quoted two official US studies to make their points. One of the studies, conducted last year for the US State Department, reported that senior Saudi officials had discussed the prospect of nuclear weapons’ cooperation with Pakistan.
The report, published in the department’s strategic journal the US Foreign Policy Agenda, said although “Saudi Arabia does not have weapons of mass destruction, it did... buy long-range CSS-2 ballistic missiles from China.”
“Very senior Saudi officials have held conversations with officials involved in the Pakistani nuclear programme, and possibly with similar officials in other countries,” said author Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon official, who wrote the report for the State Department.
The report — Weapons of Mass Destruction: The New Strategic Framework — also probes the impact of Pakistan’s nuclear programme on “broader trends in the greater Middle East, including the growing overlap of arms races,” and “the impact of North Korean proliferation and the India-Pakistan arms race.”
Mr Cordesman asserted that “while Pakistan is not part of the Middle East, Iran uses Pakistan’s nuclear and missile arms race with India as one of its rationales for developing its own long-range missiles; Iranian officials privately refer to tensions with Pakistan as a possible reason for Iranian proliferation.”
The report quotes US officials as saying that Saudi leaders also have discussed with Islamabad the procurement of intermediate-range missiles that Pakistan makes.
