Nuclear Power in Pakistan

A larger "multipurpose" reactor, a 50 MWt PHWR near Khushab, 200 km south of Islamabad,  started operating in 1998 and is evidently for producing weapons-grade plutonium. A larger heavy water reactor was built at Khushab from about 2002, and appeared to be operational at the end of 2009. In 2006 building of a third reactor, similar to the second, started at the site, with construction proceeding rapidly. A similar, fourth reactor has started construction there, and was observed to be about half complete in May 2012.  These apparently add up to a substantial plutonium production capacity. Khushab is reported to be making demands upon the country's limited uranium resources. A small heavy water plant is nearby. Reprocessing of military material is reported to take place at Chashma, 80 km west, and a second reprocessing plant is apparently under construction there. 

The Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) at Kahuta in Punjab is described as a weapons engineering R&D institute and research laboratory, focused on producing high-enriched uranium using centrifuge technology originally stolen from Urenco by Dr Abdul Q Khan. Set up about 1976 as the Engineering Research Laboratories it was a key part of Pakistan's weapons program, supported by the Army Corps of Engineers in competition with the plutonium program being pursued by PAEC. It was renamed in honour of Dr Khan 1981. 

Non-proliferation

Pakistan is not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but does have its civil power reactors and two research reactors (PARR 1 & 2) under item-specific IAEA safeguards.  An agreement for two further 340 MWe reactors came into force in April 2011. Pakistan has refused calls for international inspections of its enrichment activities.

Pakistan's Kahuta project (incorporating Project-706) to produce a uranium bomb was launched in 1972, following a disastrous war with India. It was partly financed by Libya to 1979. In May 1974 India exploded a nuclear test close to the Pakistan border, galvanising Pakistani efforts. The project was disbanded in 1983 after a successful cold test of weapon components.

In May 1998 Pakistan exploded five atomic devices in Baluchistan. At least one was evidently made from enriched uranium, but the Chagai II test in Kharan desert used plutonium produced by New Labs.

Through the activities of Abdul Q.Khan, a centrifuge plant and nuclear weapons designs were supplied clandestinely to Libya from the late 1990s to 2003 to furbish a weapons program there. He also transferred centrifuge technology to North Korea in the 1990s, and to Iran.

Pakistan is reported to be the sole nation blocking agreement of the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) in Geneva negotiations. 

Appendix: 

NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION ISSUES

This appendix is based on paper by Michael Wilson, 1995, The Nuclear Future: Asia and Australia and the 1995 Conference on Non-Proliferation, publ. by Griffith University. Used with author's permission. 

Pakistan (along with India and Israel) was originally a "threshold" country in terms of the international non-proliferation regime, possessing, or quickly capable of assembling one or more nuclear weapons. Their nuclear weapons capability at the technological level was recognised (all have research reactors at least) along with their military ambitions.  Then in 1998 India and Pakistan's military capability became more overt.  All three remained outside the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which 186 nations have now signed. This led to their being largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant or materials, except for safety-related devices for a few safeguarded facilities.

Regional rivalry

Relations between Pakistan and India are tense and hostile, and the risks of nuclear conflict between them have long been considered quite high.

In 1974 India exploded a "peaceful" nuclear device and then in May 1998 India and Pakistan each exploded several nuclear devices underground. This heightened concerns regarding an arms race between them.

Kashmir is a prime cause of bilateral tension, its sovereignty being in dispute since 1948. There is persistent low-level military conflict due to Pakistan backing a Muslim rebellion there.

Both countries engaged in a conventional arms race in the 1980s, including sophisticated technology and equipment capable of delivering nuclear weapons. In the 1990s the arms race quickened. In 1994 India reversed a four-year trend of reduced allocations for defence, and despite its much smaller economy, Pakistan pushed its own expenditures yet higher. Both then lost their patrons: India, the former USSR, and Pakistan, the USA.

Pakistan has offered to disarm and join the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty if India would, although both countries sees the NPT as unfair and India would prefer other international arrangements for limiting weapons proliferation.

Pakistan's weapons technology is based on the production of highly enriched uranium suitable for nuclear weapons, utilising indigenous uranium. It has at least one small centrifuge enrichment plant. In 1990 the US Administration cut off aid because it was unable to certify that Pakistan was not pursuing a policy of manufacturing nuclear weapons though this was relaxed late in 2001. In 1996 USA froze export loans to China because it was allegedly supplying centrifuge enrichment technology to Pakistan.

Pakistan made it clear since early 1996 that if India staged a nuclear test, it had done the basic development work and would immediately start assembling its own nuclear explosive device. Its nuclear weapons capability has since been demonstrated, and it is assumed to have enough highly-enriched uranium for up to 40 nuclear warheads.

In April 1998 Pakistan test fired a long-range missile capable of reaching Madras in southern India, pushing home the point by naming it after a 12th Century Muslim conqueror. This development diminished India's military advantage over Pakistan.

Since then Pakistan has been exposed as having supplied sensitive nuclear technology, notably centrifuge enrichment designs and equipment, to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Its non-proliferation credentials therefore stand in stark contrast to India's. Pakistan's security concerns derive from:

• India's possession of a nuclear weapons capability,
• its development of short and intermediate-range missiles and, since their partition in 1947,
• its defeat by India in two of three wars, notably in East Bengal, now Bangladesh, in 1972.

Nuclear Arms Control in the Region

The public stance of Pakistan and India on non-proliferation differs markedly.

Pakistan has initiated a series of regional security proposals. It has repeatedly proposed a nuclear-free zone in South Asia and has proclaimed its willingness to engage in nuclear disarmament and to sign the NPT if India would do so. This would involve disarming and joining as non-weapon states. It has endorsed a US proposal for a regional five power conference to consider non-proliferation in South Asia

India has taken the view that solutions to regional security issues should be found at the international rather than the regional level, since its chief concern is with China. It therefore rejects Pakistan's proposals.

Instead, India's 'Gandhi Plan', put forward in 1988, proposed the revision of the NPT, which it regards as inherently discriminatory in favour of the five Nuclear-Weapons States, and a timetable for complete nuclear weapons disarmament. It endorsed early proposals for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and for an international convention to ban the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons purposes, known as the 'cut-off' convention.

The USA has, for some years pursued a variety of initiatives to persuade India and Pakistan to abandon their nuclear weapons programs and to accept comprehensive international safeguards on all their nuclear activities. To this end the Clinton administration proposed a conference of nine states, comprising the five established nuclear-weapon states, along with Japan, Germany, India and Pakistan.

This and previous similar proposals have been rejected by India, which countered with demands that other potential weapons states, such as Iran and North Korea, should be invited, and that regional limitations would only be acceptable if they were accepted equally by China. The USA would not accept the participation of Iran and North Korea and such initiatives lapsed.

Another, more recent approach, centres on the concept of containment, designed to 'cap' the production of fissile material for weapons purposes, which would hopefully be followed by 'roll back'. To this end India and the USA jointly sponsored a UN General Assembly resolution in 1993 calling for negotiations for a 'cut-off' convention. Should India and Pakistan join such a convention, they would have to agree to halt the production of fissile materials for weapons and to accept international verification on their relevant nuclear facilities (enrichment and reprocessing). In short, their weapons programs would be thus 'capped'. It appeared that India was prepared to join negotiations regarding such a Cut-off Treaty under the UN Conference on Disarmament (UNCD).

However, despite the widespread international support for a FMCT, formal negotiations on cut-off have yet to begin. The UNCD can only approve decisions by consensus and since the summer of 1995, the insistence of a few states to link FMCT negotiations to other nuclear disarmament issues has brought progress on the cut-off treaty there to a standstill.  In connection with its 2006 agreement with the USA, India has reiterated its support for a FMCT.

Bilateral confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan to reduce the prospects of confrontation have been limited. In 1990 each side ratified a treaty not to attack the other's nuclear installations, and at the end of 1991 they provided one another with a list showing the location of all their nuclear plants, even though the respective lists were regarded as not being wholly accurate. Early in 1994 India proposed a bilateral agreement for a 'no first use' of nuclear weapons and an extension of the 'no attack' treaty to cover civilian and industrial targets as well as nuclear installations.

Having promoted the CTBT since 1954, India dropped its support in 1995 and in 1996 attempted to block the Treaty. Following the 1998 tests the question has been reopened and both Pakistan and India have indicated their intention to sign the CTBT. Indian ratification may be conditional upon the five weapons states agreeing to specific reductions in nuclear arsenals.

See also: Nuclear Power in India.

Sources:

PPNN Newsbriefs 1995-98, Issue Review #5, 1995.
Australian Safeguards Office
IAEA 2003, Country Niuclear Power Profiles.
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission web site http://www.paec.gov.pk/
Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) web site  http://www.isis-online.org/