The reactor building of a nuclear power plant in Iran. Saudi Arabia feared to align with Pakistan for its own nuclear bomb.

The reactor building of a nuclear power plant in Iran. Saudi Arabia are feared to align with Pakistan for its own nuclear bomb. Photo: AP

THE arrival yesterday of a senior United Nations team in Tehran has raised hopes that Iran may be in the mood to talk about its nuclear program. But there are growing fears that neighbouring Saudi Arabia will turn to Pakistan for its own bomb if Iran develops nuclear weapons.

The two nations' military officers train together, Saudi Arabia has reportedly bought Pakistani missiles and the Saudi air force was created using Pakistani training, aircraft and pilots.

When Pakistan tested its first nuclear device in 1998 and was placed under sanctions by an outraged US and Europe, 50,000 free barrels of oil a day from Saudi Arabia helped it survive.

Throughout the 1980s and '90s, hundreds of millions of Saudi dollars were poured into Pakistan's efforts to build nuclear weapons, funding as much as 60 per cent of the program.

That money was given, it is widely believed, on an understanding that Pakistan would offer Saudi Arabia nuclear protection, or, at some future date, the chance to buy weapons or the technology to make them.

Europe joined the US last week in imposing sanctions on Iranian oil, after an International Atomic Energy Agency report said Tehran had ''carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device''.

Specifically, Iran has begun work at a new facility - an airstrike-resistant bunker at Fordo, near the city of Qom - seen as a step towards producing weapons-grade uranium. Analysts believe Iran could have a bomb as soon as next year.

The agency's latest delegation to Iran includes two senior weapons experts - Jacques Baute, of France, and Neville Whiting, of South Africa - suggesting Iran may be prepared to address weapons allegations. Saudi Arabia has warned that if its long-standing regional rival succeeds in building a bomb, it wants one too.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence, reportedly warned US and Britain that Iran gaining nuclear arms ''would compel Saudi Arabia … to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences''.

''If our efforts, and the efforts of the world community, fail to convince Israel to shed its weapons of mass destruction and to prevent Iran from obtaining similar weapons, we must, as a duty to our country and people, look into all options we are given, including obtaining these weapons ourselves.''

Most analysts are convinced the Saudis will turn to Pakistan.

''For all its wealth, Saudi Arabia does not have the technical and scientific base to create a nuclear infrastructure,'' Pervez Hoodbhoy, a nuclear physicist at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University, told the Herald. ''Too weak to defend itself and too rich to be left alone, the country has always been surrounded by those who eye its wealth.''

But despite being ''enormously indebted'' to Saudi Arabia, Islamabad cannot simply sell bombs ''off the shelf'' to Riyadh, Professor Hoodbhoy said.

''Deterrence becomes effective once you advertise you have a weapon in hand,'' he said. ''But if a country buys weapons surreptitiously, it cannot flaunt them as a nuclear deterrent because of the obvious question, 'Where did you get them from?'''

Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the US, cannot be seen to be buying nuclear weapons from Pakistan, and Pakistan, already a nuclear pariah, cannot afford to be cast, again, as a proliferator of arms.

A secret weapons program would put Saudi Arabia in breach of a memorandum of understanding with the US that promises American assistance for a civilian nuclear program in return for the Saudis not pursuing ''sensitive nuclear technologies''.

Even with assistance, building nuclear weapons would take Saudi Arabia 10 to 15 years, Professor Hoodbhoy said.

with Associated Press