Nuclear program of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is not known to have a nuclear weapons program. From an official and public standpoint, Saudi Arabia has been an opponent of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, having signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and is a member of the coalition of countries demanding a Nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East. Studies of nuclear proliferation have not identified Saudi Arabia as a country of concern.

However, over the years there have been media reports of Saudi Arabia's intent to purchase a nuclear weapon from an outside source. In 2003, a leaked strategy paper laid out three possible options for the Saudi government: to acquire a nuclear deterrent, to ally with and become protected by an existing nuclear nation, or to try to reach agreement on having a nuclear-free Middle East. UN officials and weapon specialists have suggested this review was prompted by a distancing of relations with the US, concerns over Iran's nuclear program, and the lack of international pressure on Israel to give up its nuclear weapons.

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. This program did not involve support for development of nuclear weapons.

Historically, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have had a cordial relationship. Pakistani political scientists and historians have noted that Saudi interest in nuclear technology began in the 1970s after Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto convened a meeting of Pakistan's leading theoretical physicists (who went on to join the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals) with the Saudi royal government during a visit by the Saudi royal family to Pakistan in 1974 as part of the 2nd OIC conference at Lahore. At this meeting, Bhutto noted the advances made in the Israeli and the Indian nuclear programmes, which he took as attempts to intimidate the Muslim world.

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