US intelligence: Saudi Arabia has not ruled out nuclear weapons — Jerusalem Post
In the United States, intelligence assessments indicate that Saudi Arabia has not ruled out the possibility of creating a nuclear weapons program. The information was contained in classified documents submitted to Congress for its consideration of an agreement to expand civilian nuclear cooperation between Washington and Riyadh, the Jerusalem Post reports, citing The Washington Post.
The agreement is undergoing congressional review
The agreement proposed by the administration of US President Donald Trump would allow American companies to implement nuclear energy projects in Saudi Arabia worth tens of billions of dollars. The document is currently undergoing a 90-day review in Congress, during which lawmakers may try to block it.
According to The Washington Post, the arrangement initially limits uranium enrichment to below 5%, but after further study and a written agreement, the limit could be raised to 20%. The publication notes that this level of enrichment is still below weapons-grade.
A group of Democratic senators led by Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley stated in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the agreement could give Saudi Arabia the ability to enrich uranium and potentially build nuclear weapons. Merkley also questioned Riyadh's need to enrich uranium domestically if the program is exclusively civilian in nature.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
The positions of Riyadh and the State Department
Saudi authorities did not directly answer The Washington Post's questions, but referred to an earlier statement by Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman. He called the nuclear program peaceful and said it would be developed with the highest level of responsibility and transparency.
The US State Department said that Washington does not and will not support a Saudi nuclear weapons program. The department said the agreement is intended to expand cooperation in nuclear energy and, in its assessment, preserve the strictest nonproliferation standards that could be achieved through diplomacy.
A separate concern is the absence from the arrangement of a requirement for Saudi Arabia to join the IAEA Additional Protocol, which gives the agency broader access to nuclear facilities and research sites. Twenty nonproliferation experts, including former IAEA Director General Hans Blix, warned in a letter to Congress that the inspection terms envisaged by the arrangement could make it more difficult to determine whether Saudi Arabia is secretly developing nuclear weapons at undeclared sites.
