The development could shift security calculations in the Middle East and further complicate the Biden administrations efforts to coax Iran back into its nuclear deal with world powers. There is no indication of the validity or credibility of the BBCs sources, nor does the article expand on what essentially constitutes an unverified lead. It is a huge regional win for Tehran, since this vindicates the idea that maximum pressure has failed, said Sanam Vakil, the deputy director of the Middle East North Africa program at Chatham House, a London-based research group, referring to Mr. Trumps campaign to force Iran to end its nuclear program and regional meddling. WASHINGTON (AP) In a matter of days, Saudi Arabia carried out blockbuster agreements with the worlds two leading First published on March 15, 2018 / 7:12 AM. Through the 60s and 70s several Saudi kings advised the Shah against this kind of rapid modernisation but their advice fell on deaf ears. Luo Xiaoguang/Xinhua, via Associated Press. Satellite images from commercial imaging company Planet show the test site in Saudi Arabia on Nov. 2, 2021. For years, Irans standing as a Mideast power has been battered on a number of fronts. Its network spans countries around the world. [40], Newsweek quoted an anonymous source in 2014 that Saudi Arabia had acquired CSS-5 intermediate-range ballistic missiles from China in 2007 with "Washington's quiet approval on the condition that CIA technical experts could verify they were not designed to carry nuclear warheads". as well as other partner offers and accept our. The underlying question is the potential for the future proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. However, over the years there have been media reports of Saudi Arabia's intent to purchase a nuclear weapon from an outside source. KA-CARE has been set up in the capital of Saudi Arabia in order to progress this agenda which is considered as an alternative to oil, and also to be the proper agency for the purpose of treaties on nuclear energy signed by Saudi kingdom. Mar 15, 2023, [10][21][22][23] On March 15, 2018 Saudi defense minister and heir to the throne Prince Mohammad bin Salman made such a statement on the CBS 60 Minutes programme. [21] In 2012, it was confirmed that Saudi Arabia would launch its own nuclear weapons program immediately if Iran successfully developed nuclear weapons. In October 2013, Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, "the Saudis will not wait one month. [8] In 2003, globalsecurity.org reported that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had entered a secret agreement on nuclear cooperation providing Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons technology in return for access to cheap oil for Pakistan.[9]. [19] In March 2007, foreign ministers of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council met in Saudi Arabia to discuss progress in plans agreed in December 2006, for a joint civilian nuclear program.[20]. Akaki Dvali. The UAE would, in return, renounce their right to enrich uranium for their civilian nuclear program. Bahrain does not have an embassy in Iran. [41] The Center for Strategic and International Studies lists the CSS-5 as being capable of carrying either 250-kiloton or 500-kiloton nuclear or various types of conventional high-explosive warheads. And on Thursday, the secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani a powerful official who negotiated the Saudi deal in China arrived in the United Arab Emirates with a delegation of senior financial and security officials, including the governor of the Central Bank. Described as a victory for Chinese diplomacy in a volatile region which for long has been the happy hunting grounds of the United States, the rapprochement between a strong ally of the US and a longstanding ally of the Russians and the Chinese was one of the glorious uncertainties of Middle Eastern politics. The New York Times described the agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to renew normal diplomatic relations as a win-win-win agreement, limited to China (which will have increased confidence in its energy supplies), Iran and Saudi Arabia. The shock of the Chinese-led agreement may, over time, help people in the United States adjust and respond to this new and more complex reality.. Tom Porter. [7], In 2018 Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman confirmed on 60 Minutes that Saudi Arabia would develop nuclear weapons if Iran successfully detonated one, causing widespread distrust of the Saudi Arabian nuclear program. This same question plays out everywhere Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, pakistan. Read all theLatest News,Trending News,Cricket News,Bollywood News, Image source: REUTERS / SPA / POOL via WANA / TIMA. Saudi Arabia is not known to have a nuclear weapons program. The key piece of evidence is that the facility is operating a burn pit to dispose of solid-propellant leftover from the production of ballistic missiles, wrote Jeffrey Lewis and David Schmerler of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute. [4], In May 2008, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding, as part of the United States' vintage Atoms for Peace program, to boost Saudi efforts for a civilian nuclear program. Top editors give you the stories you want delivered right to your inbox each weekday. Fitzpatrick, a former State Department official, said at the time that other than a general desire to keep pace with Iran, Riyadhs motivations for acquiring ballistic missiles were not entirely clear. [33], Saudi Arabia constructed a facility for extracting uranium yellowcake from uranium ore with the help of China. In the final analysis it is safe to say that this watershed agreement is anything but. Furthermore, in March/August 2017, the Saudi Arabia Geological Survey signed an agreement to a Chinese nuclear company (CNNC), and it was associated with co-operation on uranium exploration. MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN: Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as The Times said China, one of the signatories to the JCPOA, does not want Iran to have nuclear weapons. O'DONNELL: But I've seen that you called the Ayatollah Khamenei, "the new Hitler" of the Middle East. Overview about the nuclear program of Saudi Arabia, Nuclear sharing with Arab States of the Arabic Gulf nuclear programs. [32] These actions are a threat to regional and international security and we call on Iran to immediately cease its activities, the Foreign Office said in a statement. Conveniently for the Iranians, the Shias were in a majority in those exact provinces of Saudi Arabia that had all the oil (as well as in Iraq, Bahrain and parts of Yemen all ruled by Sunnis) and obviously got weaponized. In 2018, then-U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the pact, saying it was insufficient to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. South Korean officials openly musing about acquiring nuclear weapons and Arab states embracing Israel are two of the most striking examples of the trend. Like Saudi Arabia it is a Sunni Muslim-ruled kingdom. But will the JCPOA be revived or transformed, or will Iran and Saudi Arabia join Israel and get the bomb? Irans state news media reported on Friday that he will travel to Iraq next to sign a security pact. Regional states have closed down financial channels that once allowed Tehran to evade U.S.-led sanctions over its nuclear and weapons programs. IE 11 is not supported. The devastating losses they suffered combined with the total western apathy to Iraqs use of chemical weapons as well as the regimes own clumsy alienation of every single ally it had (the US through the embassy hostages, the USSR through the Afghan war, the Arab states through tormenting revolution) meant that it now needed a nuclear weapon. King Hamad argued forcefully for taking action to terminate (Irans) nuclear program, by whatever means necessary, the cable said. [26] The report caused widespread condemnation from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in both houses of Congress due in part to the recent assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and the conduct of the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. Participation in the Biological Weapons Convention, Saudi Arabia and weapons of mass destruction, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, Disease as a Weapon: Assessing the international methods of ensuring biological weapons nonproliferation, KSA takes first step towards nuclear plant tender: sources, "Pakistan, Saudi Arabia in secret nuke pact Islamabad trades weapons technology for oil", "U.S. lawmakers press for oversight of any Saudi nuclear deal", "Saudi crown prince: If Iran develops nuclear bomb, so will we", "Saudi nuclear weapons 'on order' from Pakistan", 3. Last week, it brokered talks. For Irans government, the gains would be significant at a time when its legitimacy has been challenged at home with protests that erupted six months ago after a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, died in custody after being accused of violating the countrys hijab laws, and as it faces increasing isolation in the West as a result of its crackdown on dissent. Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. Similarly, how will Iran deal with its resistive and increasingly vocal youth absent an external enemy, absent guerrilla campaigns to be fought in Yemen and Lebanon and Syria, and absent economic growth? He adds that the agreement would enhance Irans bargaining power at the negotiating table. Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit. Despite the Iranian revolution, until the catastrophic failures of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, what was once described as the geopolitical center of the struggle for world power lay almost entirely within the U.S. sphere, he added. For them it was a twofold reason to do so. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Thats all nothing more, nothing less. Ugc, via Agence France-Presse Getty Images. To understand why this is, we need to understand the history of this dispute and how it affects each countrys approach today. The Iranian programme proceeded in hiccups, accelerating when a threat was felt and slowing down when the leaderships threat perception reduced. Updated Date: MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN: Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible. Riyadh is pursuing its open negotiations about establishment of atomic foundations in front of media. Royal Court of Saudi Arabia / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images, Analysts have told Insider that the move appears, was accused by the Biden administration of siding with Russia, Prince Mohammed welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to Saudi Arabia, in the region. Satellite images obtained by NBC News also suggest that Saudi Arabia is producing ballistic missiles at a site west of the capital, Riyadh, according to researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, in California. Furthermore, Saudi royalty and other high-ranking officials have explicitly mentioned warnings in regards to their intention to obtain nuclear weapons if Iran were to come in possession of such weaponry. suggested that the kingdom might consider producing nuclear weapons if it found itself between the atomic arsenals of Iran and Israel. Only time will tell, she declared. The deal translates into transfer of nuclear technology from a nuclear weapons state to a non-weapons state, and has prompted nuclear proliferation fears The images were provided by commercial imaging company Planet Labs PBC. (Updated April 2022) Saudi Arabia has plans to establish a civil nuclear power industry. "There was nothing there," Pelletreau said. Last October, Saudi Arabia was accused by the Biden administration of siding with Russia in cutting oil production, despite the US believing that it had secured a deal with Riyadh to increase production in order to stem domestic inflation. [42] The CSS-5, while it has a comparatively shorter range (2,800km) and half the payload (1 ton) of the CSS-2, is solid-fueled, thus can be set up and placed on alert status more easily than the liquid-fueled CSS-2, and its accuracy is much greater (circular error probable of 30 meters).[43]. Follow us onFacebook,TwitterandInstagram. At the center of the media negotiations was Iran International, a Saudi-owned and Washington-based Persian news channel, according to two Iranians familiar with the talks. Tehran and Riyadh, the leading Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim powers in the Middle East, severed ties in 2016 over backing opposing sides in proxy wars across the region, from Yemen to Syria and elsewhere. Any threat to Saudi Arabia is also a threat to Pakistan. The news was first reported by CNN on Thursday. The first was to inherit Irans undisputed regional supremacy it had enjoyed for the preceding 30 years, but also to do it in a way that did not seem granted by America but through the moral force of Islam. That is why it started developing the nuclear bomb in the first place. It was in the midst of this war that Iran first considered going nuclear. Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed on Friday to re-establish relations after seven years of hostility. Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile. This potentially reduces the probability of a nuclear deal with the U.S.[30], in May 2018, Al Jazeera media reported the statement from the former director of Al Arabiya TV, Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, who wrote in the Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper an article while accompanying Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his recent visit to Washington that no one can confirm if Saudi Arabia is capable of building a nuclear weapon yet. Selling them out or forcing them to compromise would essentially mean the loss of a tangible and potent asset in exchange for esoteric promises of equality and peace. The Saudis have long been U.S. allies and enjoyed a close relationship with the Trump administration, but those efforts to overhaul the countrys image were tainted by the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. 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