US wanted to remove uranium from Pakistani reactor: WikiLeaks

Washington, Nov 29 (IANS/AKI) US diplomatic cables released by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks show that since 2007 the US has been engaged in an effort to remove highly enriched uranium from a Pakistani research reactor.

According to the documents released Sunday, the US administration authorised this because American officials feared the material could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device.

In May 2009, US ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson reported to the State Department that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said: “If the local media got word of the fuel removal, they certainly would portray it as the US taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.”

Cables sent by the US embassy in Islamabad to the US State Department also talk of “grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme” amid growing instability.

They depict the Obama administration struggling to sort out which Pakistanis are trustworthy partners against Al Qaeda, and “assessing whether a lurking rickshaw driver in the eastern city of Lahore was awaiting fares or conducting surveillance of the road to the American consulate”.

WikiLeaks has exposed thousands of US diplomatic cables, thanks to an anti-war activist who got access to the secret files due to a glitch in the computer system.

–IANS/AKI