As if nuclear issues evolving around disputes with North Korea and Iran developing their own nuclear programs, irrespective of international law and agreements concerning this topic were not bad enough, it seems that Pakistan may be "flirting" with the nuclear side as well, since satellite photos display what appears to be a reactor designed for the plutonium output increase.

Independent analysts have claimed that Pakistan is on the verge of building a powerful new reactor in order to produce plutonium, a political decision whose content has not been verified yet for its accuracy. However, if this proves to be true, then it would mean that Pakistan wishes to expand its nuclear capabilities, which in the current state of the region's arms race, would be labeled as a threatening escalation.

American nuclear experts from The Institute for Science and International Security in Washington have issued a technical assessment regarding Pakistan's involvement in nuclear business, and brought satellite photos of Pakistan's Khushab nuclear site as argument. They display a partially finished heavy-water reactor that would be able to produce at least 40 to 50 nuclear weapons per year, which would mean a 20-times increase from the current nuclear capabilities Pakistan holds.

The evaluation also mentions the fact that the new site has been built next to another one, where the only plutonium reactor in Pakistan, a more modest 50-megawatt unit, started production in 1998. According to the American experts, the new reactor has a capacity of over 1,000 megawatts or even more. The two authors of the evaluation, David Albright and Paul Brannan concluded: "South Asia may be heading for a nuclear arms race that could lead to arsenals growing into the hundreds of nuclear weapons, or at minimum, vastly expanded stockpiles of military fissile material".

Officially speaking, Pakistan would not confirm or infirm the news and the report, yet an important Pakistani official declared for the Washington Post news paper, on condition of anonymity that: "Pakistan's nuclear program has matured. We're now consolidating the program with further expansions. The expanded program includes "some civilian nuclear power and some military components".

This development would bring Pakistan, and its old rival, India, at odds again in matters of building nuclear warheads and other nuclear weapons. Both countries have not yet signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.