Pakistan has enough uranium to build 15 nuclear bombs

Pakistan possesses enough highly- enriched uranium to manufacture ten to 15 nuclear bombs, according to a report, New US policy towards India and Pakistan.

Pakistan, the report says, claims to have frozen its production of weapons-grade uranium since 1991 and the US government does not claim to have evidence to the contrary.

The report has been drafted by a special task force sponsored by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.

Islamabad, the reports says, has worked with foreign assistance on its missile technology programme. It has already tested two surface to surface missiles -- the HATF-1 with a range of 80 km and the HAFT-2 with a range of 300 km. It has only deployed the HAFT-1.

Though the entire M-11 missile system, comparable to India's Prithvi missile, was shipped to Pakistan from China by 1992, it has not been deployed or assembled so far. These missiles, the report notes, can become operational with little delay.

In addition, Pakistan appears to be building a capacity to manufacture missiles indigenously with Chinese assistance.

The report says India and Pakistan have either built or acquired ballistic missiles to augment their ability to deliver nuclear weapons using advanced aircraft.

The nuclearisation of the subcontinent is unlikely to be reversed in the near future, observes the report.

India and Pakistan, who have not signed the Non Proliferation Treaty, the report notes, will not roll back their nuclear capabilities. For the present, it says non proliferation efforts concerning the two countries should concentrate on preventing further destabilising developments.

Referring to Washington's ties with India and Pakistan, the report observes that the United States with other interested governments and organisations should encourage regular, sustained and multi-faceted contact between the two nations in a wide variety of areas such as trade, energy resource development, environment and commercial projects, and telecomunications.

The US, it says, should also offer both countries new verification technologies that could help them avoid 'false alarms and give confidence to reduce or redeploy their forces.' It also believes the US could provide intelligence support to these two countries in dispelling exaggerated fears that lead to unneccessarily destabilising developments.