Nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan is set to attract world attention again next week as a fresh dossier on his nuclear black market network is being made available to the international media in London that might unleash a new storm for Pakistan.
The fresh dossier might put Iran under more pressure than Pakistan, as it is said to focus on the activities of Khan’s nuclear network and its links with Iran to prove it helped Tehran facilitate its own nuclear facilities.
By Rauf Klasra
LONDON: Nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan is once again set to attract world attention next week as a fresh dossier on his nuclear black market network is being made available to the international media in London on May 2 that might unleash a new storm for Pakistan.
The fresh findings about Dr AQ Khan network might put Iran under pressure more than Pakistan, as it is said to focus on the activities of the Dr Khan network and its links with Iran to establish a point that actually the network had played a role in facilitating Tehran to establish its own nuclear facilities.
The international press, particularly based in London, Washington and New Delhi, might find a lot of juicy stuff about Pakistan on May 2 from this dossier to report and establish yet again that in addition to certain countries like Iran, North Korea, and Libya, now even terrorists were capable of getting nuclear weapons from black markets like one was being operated by Dr AQ Khan.
Sources claimed that a genuinely panicked Pakistan government was trying hard to get clues about this new research paper beforehand. It wanted to prepare itself in advance to face the international media about many of the startling points raised in the new findings about the Dr AQ Khan network that according to one claim made in this research paper was spread over three continents.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has published this new document titled “Nuclear black markets: Pakistan, AQ Khan and the rise of proliferation networks: A new assessment”. According to some information made available to The News about this research paper, the arrest and public confession of Dr AQ Khan in 2004 confirmed the existence of a global proliferation network which had, over almost two decades, provided nuclear technology, expertise, and designs to Iran, North Korea, Libya and possibly other countries.
The IISS has now claimed that Dr Khan was not the only nuclear arms merchant and Pakistan was not the only country implicated in his shadowy network. It spanned three continents and eluded both national and international systems of export controls that had been designed to prevent illicit trade. This highlighted concerns that nuclear technology is no longer the monopoly of the industrially advanced countries, but possibly can be purchased off-the-shelf by both states and terrorist groups.
Meanwhile, it has been claimed that the IISS dossier provides a comprehensive assessment of the Pakistani nuclear programme from which the Dr Khan network emerged, the network’s proliferation activities, and the illicit trade in fissile materials. In addition, the dossier provides an overview of the clandestine nuclear procurement activities of other states, along with the efforts made both by Pakistan and the international community to prevent reoccurrence of further proliferation networks and to secure nuclear technology. The final chapter assesses policy options for further action.
The IISS is the world’s leading authority on political-military conflict. It has offices in the US and in Singapore with charitable status in each jurisdiction. The IISS was founded in 1958 in the UK by a number of individuals interested in maintaining civilised international relations in the nuclear age. Much of the institute’s early work focused on nuclear deterrence and arms control and was hugely influential in setting the intellectual structures for managing the Cold War.
