Although, according to a letter sent by A.Q. Pakistan thus became the seventh country in the world to successfully develop and test nuclear weapons. Pakistan's fissile material production takes place at Nilore, Kahuta, and Khushab Nuclear Complex, where weapons-grade plutonium is refined. The last test of Pakistan was conducted at the sandy Kharan Desert under the codename Chagai-II, also in Balochistan, on. This operation was named Chagai-I by Pakistan, the underground iron-steel tunnel having been long-constructed by provincial martial law administrator General Rahimuddin Khan during the 1980s. įinally, on, a few weeks after India's second nuclear test ( Operation Shakti), Pakistan detonated five nuclear devices in the Ras Koh Hills in the Chagai district, Balochistan.
Following India's surprise nuclear test, codenamed Smiling Buddha in 1974, the first confirmed nuclear test by a nation outside the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council, the goal to develop nuclear weapons received considerable impetus. This marked the beginning of Pakistan's pursuit of nuclear deterrence capability. In December 1972, Abdus Salam led the establishment of Theoretical Physics Group (TPG) as he called scientists working at ICTP to report to Munir Ahmad Khan. Īt the Multan meeting, Bhutto also appointed Munir Ahmad Khan as chairman of PAEC, who, until then, had been working as director at the nuclear power and Reactor Division of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Vienna, Austria. Bhutto was the main architect of this programme, and it was here that Bhutto orchestrated the nuclear weapons programme and rallied Pakistan's academic scientists to build an atomic bomb in three years for national survival. Bhutto called a meeting of senior scientists and engineers on 20 January 1972, in Multan, which came to known as "Multan meeting".
Pakistan's nuclear weapons development was in response to the loss of East Pakistan in 1971's Bangladesh Liberation War. Moderate uranium enrichment for the production of fissile material was achieved at KRL by April 1978. Eventually, the supervision passed to Lt General Zahid Ali Akbar Khan in President General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's Administration. Ghulam Ishaq Khan and General Tikka Khan appointed military engineer Major General Ali Nawab to the program. The Board consisted of A G N Kazi (secretary general, finance), Ghulam Ishaq Khan (secretary general, defence), and Agha Shahi (secretary general, foreign affairs), and reported directly to Bhutto. The Kahuta Project started under the supervision of a coordination board that oversaw the activities of KRL and PAEC. As pointed out by Houston Wood, "The most difficult step in building a nuclear weapon is the production of fissile material" as such, this work in producing fissile material as head of the Kahuta Project was pivotal to Pakistan developing the capability to detonate a nuclear bomb by the end of 1984. Since PAEC, which consisted of over twenty laboratories and projects under reactor physicist Munir Ahmad Khan, was falling behind schedule and having considerable difficulty producing fissile material, Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgist working on centrifuge enrichment for Urenco, joined the program at the behest of Bhutto administration by the end of 1974. Pakistan began development of nuclear weapons in January 1972 under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who delegated the program to the Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Munir Ahmad Khan with a commitment to having the device ready by the end of 1976. Pakistan is one of nine states to possess nuclear weapons. For Pakistan's use of nuclear power in civilian purpose, see Nuclear power in Pakistan.