Pakistan moves closer to making atomic bomb

Press, 13 March 1985, Page 17

Pakistan moves closer to making atomic bomb

From

SHYAM BHATIA

in Islamabad

Pakistan has moved a step closer to making the atomic bomb by producing enriched uranium for the first time at a secret plant near Islamabad. President Zia ul Haq told me that the uranium was not weapons grade material and it would be used only for peaceful proposes. “Yes, we produce enriched uranium, but as part of a reasearch

programme, maybe an ounce, two ounces, maybe half a kilo,” he said. “We have been able to acquire enrichment to a grade where it is necessary to run a nuclear plant. It is less than 5 per cent, and enriched uranium for weapons grade is about 90 per cent. You are the first journalist to whom I am giving this figure.” The United states, while acknow-

ledging Pakistan’s technological breakthrough, has reportedly told Zia that enrichment beyond the 5 per cent level would be viewed with concern in Washington. Pakistani scientists have produced the enriched uranium by

centrifugal extraction,. a complex engineering process that was first perfected at the Dutch laboratories of a three-nation consortium which comprises Britain, West Germany, and the Netherlands.

A Pakistani metallurgist, Dr Ab-

del Qader Khan, who once worked in the Netherlands, is in charge of the enrichment programme. He is a hero to his fellow-countrymen, and his Khan Research Laboratories, which employ a staff of 3000, are protected by French-made sur-face-to-air missiles.

He recently told a local newspaper that Pakistan’s nuclear scientists could do whatever was

required of them by the nation. President Zia told me, with obvious pride: “There are only five countries in the world who have the expertise for the enrichment of uranium. We have also acquired the technique, we are the sixth one.”

He denied reports that Pakistan had received help from Libya and China.