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Image source ; http://gentleseas.blogspot.ie/2013/08/pakistans-growing-nuclear-capabilities.html

CIA papers reveal China’s nuclear free pass to Pakistan

| TNN | Updated: Jan 28, 2017, 10.14 AM IST

Highlights

  • Recently declassified CIA files testify to the depth of the Pak-China military relationship built over decades
  • US suspected that China gave Pakistan the design of N-bomb and enriched uranium
  • US notes that China did not ask Pak to open its nuclear installations to IAEA inspections

Representative image.Representative image.

NEW DELHI: Recently declassified CIA files+ testify to the depth of the Pakistan-China military relationship built over decades and also highlights how Beijing was willing to risk its own nuclear cooperation with US to boost the nuclear ambitions of ‘all weather friend’ Pakistan.

In the files, the US notes that China did not ask Pakistan to open its nuclear installations to IAEA inspections, after inking a nuclear agreement with the latter. The text of the agreement is pretty anodyne, focusing on non-military nuclear technology, radio-isotopes, medical research and civilian power technology. By this, the US notes, China wanted to develop a nuclear export market in Pakistan in “nonsensitive” areas. This would “reassure” countries like US which were apprehensive about Pakistan’s nuclear designs.

“We cannot rule out the possibility that China may feel it will be easier to cooperate clandestinely with Pakistan behind the smokescreen of IAEA-safe guarded cooperation activity in non-sensitive areas.”