Nuclear program of Saudi Arabia

[7] It is widely believed that Saudi Arabia has been a major financier of Pakistan's own integrated atomic bomb project since 1974, a program founded by former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

[7][8] In the 1980s, Chief Martial Law Administrator and President General Zia-ul-Haq paid a state visit to Saudi Arabia where he unofficially told the King that: "Our achievements are yours".

In 1998, the conservative Prime minister Nawaz Sharif informed Saudi Arabia confidentially before ordering the nuclear tests (see Chagai-I and Chagai-II) in the Weapon-testing labs-III (WTL) located in the Chagai remote site in Balochistan Province of Pakistan.

[7] In June 1998, the prime minister paid a farewell visit to King Fahd and publicly thanked the Saudi government for supporting the country after the tests.

[9] In March 2006, the German magazine Cicero reported that Saudi Arabia had, since 2003, received assistance from Pakistan to acquire nuclear missiles and warheads.

Satellite photos allegedly reveal an underground city with nuclear silos containing Ghauri rockets in Al-Sulaiyil, south of the capital Riyadh.

[14][15] The details of such cooperation were not fully provided by the government-controlled Saudi Press Agency, but according to Hashim Yamani, president of the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, the kingdom has planned 16 commercial nuclear power reactors by 2030.

[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] In 2011, Prince Turki al-Faisal, who has served as the Saudi intelligence chief and as ambassador to the United States has suggested that the kingdom might consider producing nuclear weapons if it found itself between the atomic arsenals of Iran and Israel.

In such an eventuality, Saudi Arabia would start work on a new ballistic missile platform, purchase nuclear warheads from overseas and aim to source uranium to develop weapons-grade material.

Officials in the U.S. alliance believe Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have an understanding in which Islamabad would supply the kingdom with warheads if security in the Persian Gulf was threatened.

[23] Western intelligence sources have told The Guardian that the Saudi monarchy has paid for up to 60% of the Pakistan's atomic bomb projects and in return has the option to buy five to six nuclear warheads off the shelf.

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.

Since 2009, when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned visiting US special envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross that if Iran crossed the threshold, "we will get nuclear weapons", the kingdom has sent the Americans numerous signals of its intentions.

"[25] According to the US based think-tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the BBC report on possible nuclear sharing between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia is partially incorrect.

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.

In this report geologists identified some reserves near the controversial Neom megacity development are and estimated that Saudi could produce over 90,000 tonnes of uranium from three deposits.

[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".

[42] The CSS-5, while it has a comparatively shorter range (2,800 km) 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).