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Pakistan rejects report on secret nuclear help to Saudi Arabia
AFP
ISLAMABAD
Petroleumworld.com 03 30 06Pakistan on Wednesday rejected as "fabricated" a German magazine report that said Saudi Arabia was working secretly on a nuclear programme with help from Pakistani experts.
"It is a fabricated story and motivated by vicious intentions," foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
Citing Western security sources, German magazine Cicero in its latest edition, says that during the Haj pilgrimages to Mecca in 2003 through 2005, Pakistani scientists posed as pilgrims to come to Saudi Arabia in aircraft sponsored by the oil-rich kingdom.
Between October 2004 and January 2005, some of them took the opportunity to "disappear" from their hotel rooms, sometimes for up to three weeks, German security expert Udo Ulfkotte told the magazine.
According to Western security services, the magazine added, Saudi scientists have been working since the mid-1990s in Pakistan, a nuclear power since 1998, thanks to the work of the now-disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
The latest issue of Cicero, which will appear on newsstands on Thursday, also quoted US military analyst John Pike as saying that Saudi bar codes can be found on half of Pakistan's nuclear weapons "because it is Saudi Arabia which ultimately co-financed the Pakistani atomic nuclear programme".
Dismissing the report, the foreign office spokeswoman here said "Pakistan has a unilateral commitment to non-proliferation."
"As a responsible nuclear state, Pakistan has taken all measures to strengthen its export control," she added.
AFP 29 03 06 1642 GMTCopyright © 1994-2006 Agence France-Presse. All Rights Reserved.
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