Pakistani increases covert efforts to procure nuclear technology

FRANKFURT: Pakistan has been illegally involved in procuring technology used in biological, nuclear and chemical weapons.

Pakistan’s indulgence on such illegal activities was revealed in a response by the German government earlier this month to a query put forth by several lawmakers of Die Linke (Left Party).

According to a report published in Pakistanchristianpost.com, the German domestic intelligence agency, Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), had also raised such concerns saying that there had been a ‘massive increase’ in Pakistan’s efforts to clandestinely procure nuclear goods in Germany and other Western nations.

The latest dreads of the German government very much in sync with the German intelligence agencies.

This development emerged when five MPs of the German’s Left Party, Dei Linke sought government’s information on qualitative and quantitative changes since 2010 efforts by countries, including Pakistan, to illegally procure stuff that are needed for the research and manufacture of biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear weapons and carrier systems from Germany, according to Pakistanchristianpost.com.

The German government, meanwhile, responded saying that ‘Pakistan has seen a massive increase in illegal procurement efforts to proliferation-relevant activities in recent years since 2010.’

The Bfv, German intelligence agency, too, had feared in its 2018 report that Pakistan’s efforts were aimed at countering its neighbor, India.

The report projected that as Pakistan hadn’t signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) along with the related security agreements to a civilian nuclear program, these ‘extensive military nuclear and carrier technology programs are directed against its ‘arch-enemy’ India’.

In a German TV program, Tagesschau Dagdelen, a member of the foreign affairs committee of the German Parliament, asked the federal government to end arms supplies to Pakistan.

Meanwhile, in a 2016 report published by Project Alpha of the Centre for Science and Security Studies at King’s College, London, had alerted that ‘Pakistan should be excluded from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)’ due to its strategy of using frontage companies as well as other devious methods to obtain dual-use goods to meet its nuclear program.

The report also dubbed Pakistan to be a ‘non-responsible actor’ in the domain of non-proliferation.

These claims or allegations are, in fact, not baseless as Pakistan’s founder of the nuclear program, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, had once admitted to transferring nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea.

It should also not be forgotten that former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had acknowledged about passing on of nuclear secret to Libya, Iran, and North Korea by Khan.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Centre has estimated in 2015 that Pakistan has a bomb-making capability at twenty devices on an annual basis. It has been estimated that it has an arsenal of 110 to 130 nuclear bombs.

It is also said that by 2025, Pakistan is planning to increase its nuclear arsenal to 250 atomic warheads. (Agencies)