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Albright: 'India likely to conduct N-test'
WASHINGTON: Having developed the capability to build and operate a centrifuge plant, India is speeding up efforts to make highly-enriched uranium (HEU) for its nuclear submarine program and may even conduct a N-test, an American think tank has said.In a report released on Thursday, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said India, which is operating about 2,000 to 3,000 centrifuges at the Rare Materials Project (RMP), is now attempting to expand the number of centrifuges by 3,000. This expansion would more than double RMP's output and increase its capacity by almost 15,000 separative work units per year, the report said. Further expansions are expected. Authors of the report, David Albright and Susan Basu, said the move would increase India's ability to make HEU for its naval nuclear program and "enable it to add a substantial number of thermonuclear weapons to its arsenal." In turn, "the production of thermonuclear weapons may lead India to conduct additional N-tests as it seeks to make more deliverable, reliable, and efficient weapons," they suggested. Albright, president of ISIS and a well-known non-proliferation activist, has long been seen as an alarmist by Indian strategic circles. In the latest report, he and Basu maintained that since the Indian government has proposed designating its gas centrifuge enrichment facilities, such as RMP, as military sites under the framework of US-India N-deal, Delhi is unlikely to use these facilities to create low-enriched uranium (LEU) to fuel the Tarapur reactors. With increased access to international fuel markets, India is expected to be able to import sufficient amounts of LEU to fuel these civil reactors. Albright-Basu also said that despite the gradual development of its domestic hi-tech industry, India's centrifuge program still seeks foreign suppliers for several key items. If the NSG makes an exception for India, as a non-signatory of NPT, foreign suppliers of dual-use items will need to exercise extra care to ensure that RMP is not the ultimate end user or beneficiary of exports intended solely for peaceful, non-military uses, the report cautioned. In a separate report they also warned that Pakistan, which has mastered the uranium route to N-weapons, may be close to cranking up its plutonium production. New imagery of Pakistan's Chashma N-park raises the question of whether Islamabad may intend to bring on line a new reprocessing facility capable of separating weapons-grade plutonium out of spent reactor fuel. Such a capability, would aid Pakistan in developing thermonuclear weapons as well as increasing the size of its nuclear arsenal, they said. Posted by: john 2007-01-19 |
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