November 13, 2009 - Washington: In a disclosure likely to embarrass Beijing on the eve of President Barack Obama's visit, a leading US daily Friday reported that China gifted 50 kg of uranium to Pakistan with a do-it-yourself kit to make two atomic bombs in 1982.
Citing accounts by controversial Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan, The Washington Post said enough weapons-grade uranium for two atomic bombs was transferred to Pakistan in five stainless-steel boxes loaded on a Pakistani military C-130 aircraft from the western Chinese city of Urumqi.
The uranium transfer was part of a broad-ranging, secret nuclear deal approved years earlier by Mao Zedong and Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, according to the accounts by Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, who is under house arrest in Pakistan, the daily said.
The uranium transfer was part of a broad-ranging, secret nuclear deal approved years earlier by Mao Zedong and Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, according to the accounts by Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, who is under house arrest in Pakistan, the daily said.
