U.S. State Department Official Dismisses Saudi Arabia Nuke Reports

A U.S. State Department official yesterday dismissed a recent report that Pakistan had reached an agreement with Saudi Arabia to provide nuclear weapons technology in exchange for oil, according to DAWN (see GSN, Oct. 21).

“This story has been going around for a couple of decades. It seems very improbable to me that the Pakistanis will do so,” the State official said. “I am not in a position to confirm or deny but it does not seem likely,” the official added.

Nail al-Jubair, a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, also denied the United Press International report, saying it got basic facts wrong. While the report says the Saudi-Pakistani collaboration agreement was reached during a Saudi delegation visit to Pakistan over the weekend, Saudi and Pakistani news sources had reported the visit as occurring earlier, al-Jubair said.

The report was “so absurd that it is not even worth issuing a denial,” al-Jubair said (Anwar Iqbal, DAWN, Oct. 22).

Despite the discrediting comments, the head of Israeli military intelligence said yesterday that Saudi Arabia is attempting to purchase Pakistani nuclear warheads for use on its missiles.

Senior Saudi officials are directing talks with Pakistani officials to purchase nuclear warheads that could be loaded onto ballistic missiles based in the Arabian Peninsula, Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi said. He added that Saudi Arabia was believed to be seeking nuclear weapons in response to Iran’s nuclear program (New York Post, Oct. 22).

In addition, Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily reported today that Pakistan has agreed to station long-range ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia. The missiles would be under Pakistani command, but would have some form of joint command-and-control, sources said (Bodansky/Copley, Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, Oct. 22).

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