Author: Press Trust of India
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: November 10, 2002
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_99722,0005.htm
After reports about North Korea
supplying nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan, a former official of
the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) has said that Saudi Arabia has
been financing Islamabad's nuclear and missile programme purchases from
China.
Quoting reports, DIA's senior China
analyst Thomas Woodrow said in a research paper that "Saudi Arabia has
been involved in funding Pakistan's missile and nuclear programme purchases
from China, which has resulted in Pakistan becoming a nuclear weapon-producing
and proliferating state".
There was also a probability that
Riyadh was "buying nuclear- capability from China through a proxy state
with Pakistan serving as the cut-out", Woodrow said in his recent paper,
entitled The Sino- Saudi Connection.
Stating that Saudi Defence Minister
Prince Sultan had "toured the uranium-enrichment plant and missile production
facilities in Kahuta" in Pakistan just after the May 1999 nuclear tests,
he said the Saudi Minister "may also have been present in Pakistan" during
the test- launch of its nuclear-capable Ghauri missile.
"If Riyadh's influence over Pakistan
extends to its nuclear programmes, Saudi Arabia could rapidly become a
de facto nuclear power through a simple shipment of missiles and warheads,"
the former DIA officer said.
He said: "What in essence has happened
is that Saudi Arabia has given money to China for Pakistan's missile and
nuclear programmes".
On North Korea supplying nuclear
weapons technology to Pakistan, he said Chinese technicians working at
Pakistan's nuclear and missile facilities "almost certainly had to have
known about these (technology) transfers".
"Beijing deliberately kept this
information hidden from Washington. These events underscored how America's
historically lackadaisical attitude towards Chinese nuclear and missile
proliferation has come back to haunt it," the former Defence Intelligence
Agency officer said.
On the Sino-Saudi connection, he
said the involvement of the "Sultan branch of Saudi royal family" in the
missile dealings with Beijing was done "for the money and possibly to gain
access to an Islamic bomb".
Beijing would "assiduously attempt
to enlarge its toehold of influence in Persian Gulf as its oil appetite
grows" and its relations with Saudi Arabia remain a key component of its
strategy, he said.
