The story of Pakistan's nuclear program:
This is October 1954.
The Prime Minister of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Bogra called on US President Eisenhower at the White House:
On the same day that the then Prime Minister of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Bogra met with US President Eisenhower at the White House and Pakistan joined the US Atom for Peace (Atom for Peace) project in the field of nuclear energy. Announcing the establishment of the Atomic Energy Commission for Research and Development.
This was the beginning of Pakistan's nuclear program or in fact, it was a pledge by Pakistan that it would not use nuclear energy for the manufacture of weapons.
I remember that there was a lot of controversy in Pakistan at that time because, according to many observers, the real purpose of President Eisenhower's Atomic Peace Plan was to deprive all countries of the world, except the United States, of nuclear weapons capability. They were to be kept and banned from developing nuclear weapons.
Eisenhower from Pakistan had a lot of people on the side of Pakistan towards this project.
Similarly, soon after, an era of mutual sacrifice and cooperation began in the political and economic spheres between the United States and Pakistan.
In the same year, two Pakistani military agreements, the Santo and the Seto were signed and economic aid was given to Pakistan. The United States has decided to plan its own Pakistan for five economic projects.
The United States had completely taken over Pakistan.
As a result of the full grip of US influence on Pakistan, the leadership of Pakistan at that time did not think for a moment about the development of nuclear weapons. At the time, US defense agreements were generally seen as a means of countering aggression.
In the 1960s, news began to circulate that India was rapidly moving towards a nuclear test, but the Pakistani leadership flatly refused to step into the field of nuclear weapons.
I was there in 1964 when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto came to Delhi leading a condolence delegation from Pakistan on the demise of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
I remember a long meeting with him on this occasion to discuss the progress in the field of nuclear energy in India.
When I asked him what Pakistan was doing to acquire a nuclear capability, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto vowed to me that he would not divulge the secret, revealing that in 1963 he had It was suggested that Pakistan should launch a program to develop nuclear weapons, but President Ayub Khan and his pro-US finance minister Muhammad Shoaib and other ministers flatly rejected his proposal and made it clear that Pakistan had a nuclear weapon. Will not be able to take up arms.
When President Ayub Khan visited France in 1968, I went to Paris to cover his visit.
On this occasion, French President Charles de Gaulle had offered to build a nuclear reprocessing plant in Pakistan, but Ayub Khan turned down the offer.
This advice was given to him by his Chief of Staff General Yahya Khan, President Ayub's Senior Scientific Adviser Dr. Abdul Salam, and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission MM Ahmed.
There is no doubt that it was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who came to power in 1971 after the partition of Pakistan as a result of the Bangladesh war and who started the plan to make Pakistan a nuclear power.
Shortly after assuming the presidency, Bhutto made a whirlwind tour of Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria, and I accompanied him on that trip. The visit had two main purposes.
One goal was to renew relations with Muslim countries and the other was to get financial support from Muslim countries for Pakistan's nuclear program.
At the end of his visit to Damascus, he told Syrian President Hafez al-Assad that his visit was the beginning of a renaissance journey and that the Islamic world could gain nuclear power from Pakistan's expertise and the wealth of Muslim countries. ۔
Shortly after the visit, he formally launched Pakistan's nuclear weapons acquisition program in 1973, replacing the head of the Atomic Energy Commission and dismissing Dr. Abdul Salam, a senior scientific adviser, from the Netherlands. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was called to Pakistan.
For Pakistan's nuclear program, he persuaded the French government to renew its old offer to build a nuclear reprocessing plant.
The United States did not like the speed with which Bhutto was advancing in its nuclear program and the then US Secretary of State Kissinger had openly threatened not to stay if Bhutto insisted on a nuclear reprocessing plant.
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| Z.A Bhutto |
But research on Bhutto's nuclear capability program continued.
Pakistani scientists begin uranium enrichment at Kahuta laboratory in 1967
His hard work paid off in 1978 and by 1982 he was able to enrich himself to 90 percent.
According to Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's nuclear scientists had acquired the capability to make a nuclear bomb in 1984 and he had asked General Zia-ul-Haq to openly declare Pakistan's commitment to making a nuclear bomb. Pro-US Secretary of State and other ministers strongly opposed.
Finally, when India conducted nuclear tests in May 1998, there was no way for Pakistan to conduct nuclear tests and thus Pakistan joined the ranks of nuclear powers.
This article was first published in 2004 on the
BBC Urdu website.
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