WASHINGTON, March 14: A Washington-based non-proliferation group has claimed that India’s gas centrifuge programme used individuals connected with the so-called A. Q. Khan network for procuring equipment for its facilities.
The report is authored by ISIS director David Albright and co-authored by Susan Basu.
The Indian programme “procured through individuals who also played key roles in the illicit nuclear trading network led by the Pakistani A.Q. Khan,” says a report by the Washington-based non-proliferation group, the Institute for Science and International Security.
Quoting South African court documents, the ISIS reports that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a key member of the network located in South Africa organised the production and delivery to India of flow meter units that were specifically designed for a uranium-hexafluoride application, implying their use in a gas centrifuge programme.
“When the client experienced malfunctions in the units, the seller sent one of his employees to the Indian customer to fix the units,” the report adds. Quoting again from South African court documents, the report says that the supplier provided additional sensitive items to the Indian centrifuge programme, including feed and withdrawal equipment for centrifuge cascades.
The report warns that proliferant states are known to target India’s industries, according to US officials. With India’s rapid industrialization, much of which is based on technology from developed countries, India’s attractiveness to proliferant states can be expected to increase. India is engaged in many export promotion schemes, as its companies seek foreign markets. Onward proliferation is expected be become a serious problem.
The report notes that for several decades, Indian government entities and private companies have worked around international sanctions by developing their own dual-use products based on designs or reverse-engineered equipment from more industrialized states.
Reverse engineering and marketing of dual-use items is believed to be widespread in India and is expected to increase as India develops further.
