The New York Times has published a long report that, in recent weeks, US intelligence agencies have been conducting a classified audit of efforts in Saudi Arabia - in cooperation with China - to build an industrial capacity to produce nuclear fuel.
It quoted officials as saying that this scrutiny raised fears that there might be secret Saudi-Chinese efforts to treat raw uranium in a manner that could be later enriched and converted into nuclear fuel.
As part of the study, the New York Times says, intelligence agencies have identified a newly completed structure near the solar panel production area near the Saudi capital, Riyadh, which some government analysts and outside experts suspect may be one of a number of undeclared nuclear sites.
Early stages
US officials said that Saudi efforts are still in its early stages, and that auditors have not yet reached firm conclusions about some of the sites subject to audit. They said that even if the kingdom decided to continue a military nuclear program, it would take years before it had the capacity to produce one nuclear warhead.
The newspaper report indicated that Saudi officials have not hidden their determination to keep pace with Iran, since US President Donald Trump abandoned the 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran, and Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman pledged in 2018 that his kingdom would try to develop or possess nuclear weapons, if Iran continued its work. About making a bomb.
Congress requests a report
Last week, the House Intelligence Committee led by Representative Adam P. Schiff (a Democrat from California) included a provision in the Intelligence Budget Delegation bill asking the administration to report on Saudi efforts since 2015 to develop a nuclear program, which is a clear indication that the commission suspects that Undeclared nuclear activity.
The newspaper said that the Intelligence Committee requested that the report include an assessment of the state of nuclear cooperation between Saudi Arabia and any country other than America, such as China or Russia.
It stated that Saudi Arabia and China announced a number of joint nuclear projects in the Kingdom, including a project to extract uranium from sea water with the stated aim of assisting Saudi Arabia in developing a nuclear energy program, or becoming a uranium exporter.
Arms race in the region
She pointed out that intelligence officials have searched - for decades - evidence that the Saudis are seeking to become a nuclear power, afraid that any such move would lead to a wider and destabilizing nuclear arms race in the Middle East, where no nuclear state exists even Now only Israel.
She also said that the Trump administration is now in an uncomfortable position by declaring that it cannot afford any nuclear production capacity in Iran, while it appears silent about its close allies, the Saudis, who are forgiven for human rights violations and military adventures.
She added that the intelligence scrutiny comes at a time when the Trump administration is aggressively confronting China on several fronts, such as its dealings with the "Covid 19" virus, and its efforts to eliminate freedoms in Hong Kong, noting that until now the White House has said nothing about the Chinese nuclear deals group. With the Saudis.
Saudi Arabia rejects the restrictions
The New York Times drew attention to the fact that, since the beginning of his administration, Trump has negotiated with Saudi Arabia an agreement - requiring congressional approval - to enable Washington to help Riyadh build a civilian nuclear program.
But the Saudis did not agree to the restrictions that the UAE signed several years ago, as it committed itself not to build its fuel production capacity, which can be converted into bomb production, and the newspaper pointed to the suspension of US-Saudi negotiations mainly during the past year.
And China’s cooperation with Saudi Arabia indicates that the Saudis may have abandoned America, and instead resorted to China to start building the billion-dollar infrastructure needed to produce nuclear fuel, knowing that Beijing does not traditionally insist on strict measures to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, but rather is more keen than any Another thing to secure Saudi oil supplies.
The paradox of Saudi Arabia's dependence on Iran's friends
And regional experts say - according to the New York Times - that part of the Saudi accounts stems from the view that it can no longer rely on America to confront Iran.
The irony is that Saudi Arabia has sought civilian nuclear partnerships and defensive agreements with two powers with deep economic ties with Iran: China and Russia, said Moat Larsen, a former CIA official.
The New York Times report said that Saudi Arabia spent years developing a civilian nuclear program, and has a partnership with Argentina to build a reactor in the kingdom, but rejected limits to its ability to control nuclear fuel production, and systematically gained skills in uranium exploration, nuclear engineering, and ballistic missile manufacturing that would You put them to develop their own weapons if you decide to do so.
Saudi pursuit of uranium production
Thomas M. Countryman, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, said that during the period from 2011 to 2017 there was absolutely no doubt that the Saudis saw value in having the potential to produce their own fuel and perhaps their own weapons.
Last year, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna published a document entitled "Updates to the Saudi National Atomic Energy Project," detailing a plan to build civilian reactors, as well as fueling it by "localizing" uranium production.
The same document said that the Kingdom was searching for uranium deposits in more than 10 thousand square miles of its lands, and cooperated with Jordan to make a "yellow cake", a concentrated form of uranium ore, and its production is considered an intermediate step on the path to enriching uranium and converting it into nuclear fuel.
So far, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not been informed of facilities subject to US intelligence scrutiny.
Location close to the town of Al-Ayna
The site, which was identified by US intelligence as a nuclear device, is located in a secluded desert area not very far from the Saudi town of Al-Eina and its solar village, and it is a famous Saudi project for developing renewable energy.
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington tracking nuclear proliferation, analyzed commercial satellite imagery of the desert site, and described - in his 5-page report - the facility, which was built between 2013 and 2018, as "suspicious" given Its relative isolation in the Saudi desert and the long road to reach it.
He said that a photo taken by satellite in 2014, before the structure had a roof, revealed the installation of 4 large yellow cranes to lift and transport heavy equipment across areas of sprawling areas. Albright added that each building also houses adjacent two-story offices and areas for support personnel.
He pointed out that his examination of the satellite images was unable to determine any signs of the arrival of the processing equipment or raw materials at the desert facility.
It looks like an Iranian facility
In his report, Albright also found that the appearance of Saudi buildings is almost comparable to the appearance of Iran's uranium conversion facility, the factory China designed in Isfahan, "which is central to Iran's nuclear ambitions."
But former IAEA inspector Robert Kelly expressed doubts that satellite imagery showed evidence of a secret nuclear work, noting that the location of the sample was "identified for years as a joint facility between America and Saudi Arabia to develop solar cells," but added that he was fully convinced that Saudi Arabia China has been cooperating actively in plans to extract uranium and produce "yellow cake" elsewhere in the kingdom.
A former satellite imagery analyst at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Frank Babian, identified a Saudi desert location that appears to match the facility described in the New York Times report. This site looks like a small mill to convert uranium ore into a "yellow cake", and it has a checkpoint, and very secure fences, and there is a large building about 150 feet next to it, and pools to collect uranium waste, which is evidence of such mills. The rugged desert site is located in the northwest of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (south of the city of Al-Ula), a small town that was once on the commercial road to incense.
Satellite imagery shows that the construction of the Al-Ula site began in 2014, around the same time as work began on the facility near Al-Ayna.