PAKISTAN YESTERDAY came under increased pressure over its nuclear arsenal when a Harvard University study warned of “a very real possibility” that its warheads could be stolen by terrorists.
Pakistani prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, in Washington for a summit on world nuclear security, assured US president Barack Obama the country had an “appropriate safeguard” for its arsenal, understood to consist of 70 to 90 nuclear weapons.
However, a report by Harvard's Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, Securing the Bomb, said Pakistan's stockpile faced "a greater threat from Islamic extremists seeking nuclear weapons than any other nuclear stockpile on earth".
Experts said the danger was growing because of the arms race between Pakistan and India. The Institute for Science and International Security has reported that Pakistan’s second nuclear reactor, producing weapons-grade plutonium, shows signs of starting operations, and a third is under construction.
At their White House meeting on Sunday, Mr Obama pressed Mr Gilani to end Pakistan’s opposition to an international treaty that would ban the production of new fissile material for nuclear warheads, plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU), but the Pakistani leader showed no signs of such a move, US officials said.
Pakistan’s insistence that India reduces its stockpile first prevented talks on the fissile material cut-off treaty from getting under way in Geneva last year.
Yesterday, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon added to the pressure on Pakistan by calling for talks at the multilateral conference on disarmament to start, warning that “nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats we face today”.
Both the US and Britain have declared themselves satisfied with Pakistan’s security measures for its nuclear weapons, despite the rise of the Pakistani Taliban and other extremist groups. But yesterday’s Harvard report said there were grounds for concern.
“Despite extensive security measures, there is a very real possibility that sympathetic insiders might carry out or assist in a nuclear theft, or that a sophisticated outsider attack [possibly with insider help] could overwhelm the defences,” it said.
It also warned that weaknesses remained in measures Russia had taken in recent years to guard its nuclear stockpile, the world’s largest.
The nuclear security summit, which began yesterday in Washington, brings together leaders and officials from 47 nations, with the aim of focusing global attention on the potential theft of nuclear weapons or fissile material by terrorist groups.
The summit will endorse Mr Obama’s goal of locking up the world’s stockpiles of plutonium or HEU within four years.
“Nuclear terrorism remains an urgent danger to world security, and securing nuclear weapons and materials within four years would dramatically reduce the risk,” said Matthew Bunn, author of the Harvard report.
But he added that a lot would have to be done to meet the deadline.
“Sustained White House leadership will be needed to overcome complacency and convince policymakers around the world to act,” he said.
“We need to hit the ground running in translating summit commitments into concrete actions.” – (Guardian service)