A top Washington think tank has argued that recent examples of nuclear industry goods being smuggled from the United States to Pakistan highlight the need for closer monitoring and raise questions about how an ostensible “ally” of the U.S. could be involved in this illicit trade.
Reflecting upon an ISIS paper that examined the case of Pakistani Nadeem Akhtar, Mr. Albright said, “The U.S. government should simply ask Pakistan to stop this trade, if they want to be our allies,” adding that the recent cases in which smuggling rings were caught they ultimately lead back to supply orders originating in Pakistan.
Akhtar's case made news last month when U.S. prosecutors charged him with “running a smuggling operation that shipped materials and equipment to the agencies operating Pakistan's nuclear program,” according to media reports.
Akhtar (45) was said to have operated an export firm in Maryland, which obtained items such as radiation-detection devices, calibration equipment and nuclear-grade resins from a company based in North Dakota and passed them on to “agencies that are on a U.S. Commerce Department blacklist.” The orders made to the U.S. company dated back to 2005 and 2006.
Specifically the two Pakistani entities that received goods through Akhtar's alleged illicit procurement operation were the Chashma nuclear power plant and the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission. ISIS reported that in 2006 and 2008 Akhtar purchased equipment from a Massachusetts company used to control electrical circuits in nuclear power and fuel reprocessing plants and shipped them to the Chashma plant.
Earlier: napaki.tumblr.com
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