Alwaght- Saudi regime, currently terror-bombing neighboring country Yemen, has taken the “strategic decision” to acquire “off-the-shelf” atomic weapons from Pakistan, according to senior American officials.
World top arms importer's move stems from its anger over a potential deal between P5+1 and Iran. Riyadh has financed much of Islamabad’s nuclear program over the past three decades, as Pakistan is highly dependent on the oil-rich regime's petrodollars.
“There has been a longstanding agreement in place with the Pakistanis and the House of Saud has now made the strategic decision to move forward,” former American defense official told The Sunday Times.
Another US official working in intelligence told the paper that "hundreds of people at Langley [CIA headquarters] " were working to establish whether Islamabad had already supplied the Persian Gulf regime with nuclear technology or weaponry.
"We know this stuff is available to them off the shelf," the intelligence official said, adding that it "has to be the assumption" that the Saudis have decided to become a nuclear power.
"We can't sit back and be nowhere as Iran is allowed to retain much of its capability and amass its research," an Arab leader preparing to meet Obama told the New York Times on Monday (11 May).
"Given their close relations and close military links, it's long been assumed that if the Saudis wanted, they would call in a commitment, moral or otherwise, for Pakistan to supply them immediately with nuclear warheads," British former Foreign Secretary Lord David Owen was quoted as saying.
There are concerns that Saudi Arabia joining the nuclear club might provoke Turkey and Egypt to follow suit.
