AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
WASHINGTON: The nuclear reactor being built in Pakistan is much smaller than a private arms control group has claimed and could simply be a replacement for the Khushab reactor that makes two nuclear warheads a year, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
The US government's intelligence data shows that the new reactor is roughly the same size as the one functioning in Khushab, and not 20 times larger as the Institute for Science and International Security said in a technical assessment, goverment officials told the newspaper.
International observers reacted with alarm after the Washington Post on June 24 reported the reactor's existence, citing the US-based private arms-control group.
The group said satellite photos showed the heavy-water reactor could produce more than 200 kilogrammes (440 pounds) of weapons-grade plutonium a year. This would be enough to make 40-50 nuclear weapons every year.
“We have consulted with our experts and believe the analysis is wrong,” National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones told the NYT. “The reactor is expected to be substantially smaller and less capable than reported.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior intelligence official said the United States has been tracking the new reactor for years.
“This has been looked at for a long time and hasnt generated a lot of hand-wringing,” the official said. “It could be a replacement,” of Pakistan's existing nuclear reactor at Khushab.
Institute president David Albright said he was “confident in our evidence and calculations,” and reminded the daily of the US government's poor track record in analyzing its own intelligence, inviting it to present “the reasons it thinks we're wrong.”
The Times noted that the US government's more modest assessment could be in deference to Pakistan's role as a key US ally in the war against terrorism.
Pakistan remains at the heart of an investigtion into a nuclear blackmarket headed by its disgraced chief nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who confessed in 2004 to passing atomic secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri recently said the new nuclear reactor five years in the making was not a threat and would not spark an arms race with rival India.
“It's nothing new, the world knows about it, the world knows that it's safe in our hands,” Kasuri told AFP in an interview Friday at Asia's top security forum in Kuala Lumpur.
