Timeline of Pakistan's Nuclear Programme

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The painting depicts a C-130 Hercules being escorted by 4x PAF Vipers during one of the most important mission in the history of Pakistan.

Art Credits :- Fasl e Firaq

we knew it was carrying nukes at that time and f16 were ordered to shoot c 130 if it deviate from its flight path these order were given all f16 pilots that were escorted this c130 this order was being fulfil if any c130 pilot or outside plane try to hijack the plane.

 

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Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology, Islamabad in 1960's

 

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American architect Edward Durell Stone (1902 - 1978) shows his design for the new Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology in Islamabad, at his New York studio, 7th June 1961.

From left to right, Carter L. Burgess, President of American Machine and Foundry (AMF), Mr Stone, and Dr. Ishrat Hussain Usmani (1917 - 1992), President of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.

 

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Front cycle

Front end

The government set a target of producing 300 tonnes of uranium per year from 2015 to meet one-third of anticipated requirements, but this has not been realised. Low-grade ore is known in central Punjab at Bannu Basin and Suleman Range. In 2015 production was 45 tU.

In July 2017 CNNC signed a framework agreement with PAEC for technical cooperation in the exploration and development of uranium resources.

A small (15,000 SWU/yr) uranium centrifuge enrichment plant at the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) in Kahuta has been operated since 1984 and does not have any apparent civil use. It was expanded threefold in about 1991, and further since then. A newer plant not under safeguards is reported to be at KRL. It is not clear whether PAEC has any involvement with these plants.

Enriched fuel for the PWRs is imported from China.

In 2006 PAEC announced that it was preparing to set up separate and purely civil conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication plants as a new $1.2 billion Pakistan Nuclear Power Fuel Complex (PNPFC) for PWR-type reactors which would be under IAEA safeguards and managed separately from existing facilities. However, constraints imposed on Pakistan by the Nuclear Suppliers Group may mean that all civil nuclear development is tied to China, and there may be no point in proceeding with this project.

Waste management

The PAEC has responsibility for radioactive waste management. A Central Radioactive Waste Management Fund is proposed in a new policy. Waste management centres are proposed for Karachi and Chashma.

Used fuel is currently stored at each reactor in pools. Longer-term dry storage at each site is proposed. The question of future reprocessing remains open.

 

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Research and development

The Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology (PINSTECH) at Rawalpindi near Islamabad is managed by the PAEC and is one of the largest science and technology research establishments in the country. It has conducted research into reprocessing used nuclear fuel, though today it claims to be focused on research in medicine, biology, materials and physics, including production of medical radioisotopes.

Pakistan has a 10 MW pool-type research reactor, PARR-1, of 1965 vintage, supplied by the USA under the Atoms for Peace program. It was converted to use low-enriched uranium fuel in 1991, and upgraded from 5 to 10 MW. PARR-2 is an indigenous 30 kW miniature neutron source reactor (MNSR) based on Chinese design and using high-enriched fuel operating since 1974. Both are located at the PINSTECH Laboratory, Nilore, near Islamabad. They are under IAEA safeguards. One of them produces some Mo-99 from HEU targets.

New Labs at PINSTECH in Rawalpindi is reported to be a reprocessing plant for weapons-grade plutonium production, and not under safeguards. It is run by PAEC and operational since 1981. This was apparently the culmination of a plutonium weapons program predating the Kahuta HEU weapons program, and replaced an unfinished much larger reprocessing plant (100 t/yr) being built at Chashma by France, but cancelled in 1978.

At Khushab, 200 km south of Islamabad, there are four heavy water reactors dedicated to production of weapons-grade plutonium, plus a heavy water plant. The first of these, a 'multipurpose' PHWR estimated at 30-40 MWt, started operating in 1998. Then a larger (40-50 MWt) heavy water reactor was built there from about 2002, and appeared to be operational at the end of 2009. In 2006, construction started on a third reactor, similar to and adjacent to the second, and this appeared to be operational by the end of 2013. A similar but larger (90 MWt) fourth reactor was built from 2011 a few hundred metres away, and appeared to be operational in January 2015. These seem to 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 the original French reprocessing plant is apparently under renewed construction there, a couple of kilometres southwest of Chashma 1-4 power reactors.

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..

 

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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 (see page on Safeguards to Prevent Nuclear Proliferation), 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 NPT if India would, although both countries see 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 the USA froze export loans to China because it was allegedly supplying centrifuge enrichment technology to Pakistan.

 

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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.

 

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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 Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) under the UN Conference on Disarmament (UNCD).

 

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The Pakistan Atomic Energy Committee was established in 1955. The committee was transformed into a commission in 1956.

The Ordinance for Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) was promulgated by the President of Pakistan and later approved by the National Assembly in 1965.

The functions of PAEC include research work necessary for the promotion of peaceful uses of nuclear technology in the fields of agriculture, medicine and industry and the execution of development projects, including nuclear power plants for generation of electric power. The Commission is guided by the instructions, if any, given to it by the Government.

 

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First Nuclear Power Plant -1 Karachi, 1974

 

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First Nuclear Power Plant -1 Karachi, 1974

This photograph shows the Kundankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, India.

 

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This photograph shows the Kundankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, India.

You are right. My bad. Corrected.

 

[kimjongun]

The painting depicts a C-130 Hercules being escorted by 4x PAF Vipers during one of the most important mission in the history of Pakistan.

Art Credits :- Fasl e Firaq

we knew it was carrying nukes at that time and f16 were ordered to shoot c 130 if it deviate from its flight path these order were given all f16 pilots that were escorted this c130 this order was being fulfil if any c130 pilot or outside plane try to hijack the plane.

the threat of mossad and others was very stark in those days

 

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