China gave Pakistan bomb-grade uranium for nuclear: Washington Post: Pakistan denies

[Naveed Yaseen]

WASHINGTON (November 14 2009): China provided Pakistan with weapons grade uranium for two bombs in 1982, according to notes made by the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, the Washington Post reported Friday. In written accounts cited by the newspaper, Abdul Qadeer Khan said China also supplied a blueprint for a simple bomb that significantly speeded Pakistan's nuclear weapon programme.

The Post alleged that the deliberate act of proliferation was the culmination of a secret nuclear deal struck in 1976 by Chinese leader Mao Zedong and prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. "Upon my personal request, the Chinese Minister ... had gifted us 50 kg [kilograms] of weapon-grade enriched uranium, enough for two weapons," Khan wrote in what the Post said was a previously undisclosed 11-page narrative of the Pakistani bomb programme. Khan prepared the narrative for Pakistani intelligence officers after his January 2004 detention for unauthorised nuclear commerce. His movement is still restricted.

In a separate account sent to his wife several months earlier, he wrote, "The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us kg50 enriched uranium." The Post said China has long denied helping any other nation acquire nuclear weapons, but that Khan's accounts confirm the long-held conclusion of US intelligence that China provided such assistance. US President Barack Obama is expected to raise nuclear proliferation issues with China when he visits Beijing on Tuesday.

Khan stated that top politicians and military officers were immersed in Pakistan's foreign nuclear dealings, the Post claimed. "The speed of our work and our achievements surprised our worst enemies and adversaries and the West stood helplessly by to see a Third World nation, unable even to produce bicycle chains or sewing needles, mastering the most advanced nuclear technology in the shortest possible span of time," Khan boasts in the 11-page narrative.

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Pakistan rejects report
ISLAMABAD (November 14 2009): Pakistan on Friday rejected a report about Pakistan-China nuclear co-operation as "baseless" and termed it an attempt to harm their multi-dimensional co-operation. "Pakistan strongly rejects the assertions in the article that is evidently timed to malign Pakistan and China," a spokesman of the Foreign Office said when asked to comment on the report published today by Washington Post.

"This is yet another attempt to divert attention from the overt and covert support being extended by some states to the Indian nuclear programme since its inception and intensified more recently in stark contradiction to their self-avowed commitment to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty."

Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said Pakistan and China have comprehensive and all-dimensional co-operation, which includes civilian nuclear co-operation for peaceful purposes. "This has always been above board," he said, adding "Pakistan and China have always respected their respective international obligations and non-proliferation norms."

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