Pakistan appears to have embarked on a dramatic expansion of its nuclear arsenal with the construction of a new heavy water reactor capable of producing enough plutonium for up to 50 warheads a year, according to a report released yesterday by a US thinktank.
The report by the Institute for Science and International Security (Isis), is largely based on commercially available satellite images showing a large building site at a nuclear production complex at Khushab, in Pakistani Punjab. Isis, a non-governmental nuclear watchdog, estimates that the huge rectangular building under construction and the circular structure inside it almost certainly represent the early stages of a 1,000MW reactor capable of generating more than 200kg (440lbs) of weapons-grade plutonium per year. When completed it would be 20 times the size of the existing reactor at Khushab.

The Khushab complex uses deuterium oxide, known as heavy water because of its chemical similarity to water, to produce plutonium and tritium, which is used as a booster in nuclear fission weapons.

The Isis report suggests the Indian government must know of the new reactor and may be seeking to increase its own plutonium production. In an agreement with the Bush administration, under review by Congress this week, India insisted several of its own nuclear reactors remain exempt from international safeguards.

“South Asia may be heading for a nuclear arms race that could lead to arsenals growing into the hundreds of nuclear weapons, or at a minimum vastly expanded stockpiles of military fissile material,” the Isis report said.
guardian.co.uk

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