New York: Amid reports that a new reactor being built by Pakistan could make fuel for up to 50 nuclear warheads a year, US officials have said that the facility could simply be a replacement for the existing one in Khushab.
"We have consulted with our experts and believe the analysis (by Institute for Science and International Security) is wrong," Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told the New York Times. "The reactor is expected to be substantially smaller and less capable than reported."
The US media last week carried the report by the Washington-based institute, which is a private arms control group, amid debate over the Bush administration's nuclear deal with India and raised fears that Pakistan was trying to speed ahead in a South Asian arms race.
On Wednesday, the group's experts said they stood by their report, which is based mainly on the examination of commercial satellite images of the half-built reactor.
But, federal officials said their own intelligence indicated that the emerging reactor appeared to be roughly the same size as the small one Pakistan currently uses to make plutonium for its nuclear programme, and said the new model might be intended to replace the old one, the Times reported.
The old reactor in Khushab makes two nuclear warheads a year.
"This has been looked at for a long time and hasn't generated a lot of hand-wringing," a senior intelligence official told the paper about the new reactor on the condition of anonymity. "It could be a replacement."
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