Disturbing news seems to have made its way into the pages of reputable UK paper, The Sunday Times. According to its report, an anonymous US defence official is quoted as saying “for the Saudis, the moment has come” for them to demand a nuclear bomb from Pakistan. According to this official, there is a long-standing agreement between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to transfer nuclear weaponry if the House of Saud so demands, considering that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development programme was funded heavily by Saudi Arabia. Basically the story has made Pakistan a complicit ally of Saudi Arabia whenever it will call for nuclear arms, painting us as a country that can be counted on for illegal nuclear proliferation. The first thing that strikes one is the shady nature of the source. Any anonymous person can make scandalous remarks but that does not lend a story any kind of veracity. However, there is some context to this rather absurd report. Iran is well on its way to striking some sort of nuclear deal with the Obama administration, one that will see a lifting of the heavy sanctions imposed upon it and the green signal for a monitored and safeguarded nuclear energy programme. This development has riled feathers within the US — Congress in particular — Saudi Arabia and Israel. Ironically, the House of Saud and Zionist Israel are very much on the same page in this respect. Speculation has been rife that with the breakthrough in Iran-US talks looming, Saudi Arabia will try to arm itself with nuclear weapons. Considering that Pakistan apparently owes the Saudis a favour or two for continuously pushing aid and cash its way, a flurry of accusations was bound to fall upon us seeing that we are one of those nuclear countries that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and have the shadow of past proliferation still over our heads, but that does not mean these claims stand.Pakistan is an ally of Saudi Arabia but recent events have shown that we know how to stand our own ground. When asked to send troops into Yemen to aid the Arab coalition against the Houthis, we refused, irking our Saudi benefactors greatly but we did not waiver in our stance. The Pressler Amendment, which banned most military and economic assistance to Pakistan, hurt us greatly for daring to develop our own nuclear weapons. It is not possible to forget the financial implications of those sanctions and how bad the situation was for us. It does not seem likely that we will throw away all the hard work and efforts we have undertaken in reversing those bans just to please our Saudi friends. We need to look after our own interests and cannot be seen again as a proliferator of nuclear weapons, especially in such a conflict-ridden and dangerous time. *