Belgium, (Brussels Morning Newspaper) It is a fact that nuclear energy is frightening because of its potential. A revolutionary form of energy that even today we may not realize the size and all of its potential. These capabilities come with greater responsibility. Responsibility to the international community and commitments to non-weaponisation of them.
Saudi Arabia intends to expand its nuclear power industry using uranium that is mined domestically. The country is in general interested in nuclear weapons, and its technology. Saudi Arabia is currently developing a civil nuclear program that it hopes to someday expand to include uranium enrichment.
“The kingdom intends to utilise its national uranium resources, including in joint ventures with willing partners in accordance with international commitments and transparency standards,” Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud said.
However, the same technology employed in this process can also be used to enrich the heavy metal to greater, weapons-grade levels. Atomic reactors require uranium to be enriched to about 5% purity.
Concerns from the West and the region over Iran’s nuclear program have centered on this issue, which prompted Tehran and the international community to reach the 2015 agreement capping enrichment at 3.67%.
Nuclear Gulf?
What is the current security situation in the Gulf? What is the level of maturity for the development of nuclear energy. And what country other than Qatar that has presented successful football matches is able to present tried and tested models of collective recklessness.
During June 2022 the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has licensed the third unit of its Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant. According to the UAE’s Nuclear Energy Corporation, the unit’s construction in Abu Dhabi’s Al Dhafra neighborhood was finished last year, and it is on schedule to start up and supply clean electricity in 2023. (ENEC).
According to the World Nuclear Association, the monarchy intends to build 16 nuclear power reactors over the course of the following 20 to 25 years at a cost of more than $80 billion.
But the problem is that both countries are involved in Yemen in one way or another. Not to mention Iran and its possible reaction when nuclear technology is further developed on its doorstep.
Saudi Arabia is a non-nuclear-weapon state-party to the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which prohibits the kingdom from pursuing nuclear weapons development.
The recent deterioration in US-Saudi relations makes the Saudi royal family’s security questionable. As regional rivalries heat up, abruptly removing the U.S. security net might force Saudi Arabia into the nuclear club. That’s a terrifying thought, especially in light of the threat of Islamists toppling the monarchy. Instead, even when the two countries eventually diverge, the US should take care to preserve Saudi Arabia’s confidence.
What has history taught us?
Policies are fickle. And similar is the will of monarchs. The optimistic scenario is that Saudi Arabia and the Emirates will develop research programs for nuclear energy and its exploitation at energy levels.
But what will happen if the leadership of these countries decides that tomorrow it is in danger from external or even internal factors.
A few years ago, the Islamic State was introduced to the international community, whose dynamics came to control an area that included the borders of France and Germany. A terrorist organization that would grow in the Gulf. What would its impact be from a nuclear perspective?
Many may believe that the Gulf states will not develop nuclear technology of a militaristic nature. But they are wrong. Saudi Arabia can anytime build up a nuclear arsenal. Between 50 and 60 CSS-2 missiles were secretly purchased by Riyadh from China in the late 1980s.
Each of the back-then-sophisticated missiles could carry up to 2,500 kg of warhead and had a range of up to 3,500 kilometers.
Defector Mohammed Al Khilewi, a former diplomat in the Saudi U.N. mission, revealed to London’s Sunday Times in July 1994 that Saudi Arabia actively assisted Iraq’s nuclear weapons program between 1985 and 1990, both financially and technologically, in exchange for a share of the program’s output. This was more evidence of Saudi interest in nuclear weapons.
During Covid-19 pandemic, a classified analysis about Saudi Arabia’s plans to develop industrial capability to create nuclear fuel in partnership with China was disseminated by spy services.According to American officials, the research has sparked concerns that there may be covert Saudi-Chinese efforts to transform unenriched uranium into a form that might subsequently be enriched into weapons fuel.
