Pakistan preparing to expand nuclear production: New York Times

Pakistan is gearing to expand production of nuclear weapons-grade fuel and blocking talks on a treaty that would halt global production of new nuclear material, the New York Times reported Monday.
Quoting a senior US official, the paper said President Barack Obama used a meeting Sunday with Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to "express disappointment" that the country was leading opposition to a treaty that would end production of new nuclear bomb fuel.
Pakistan is building two new reactors for making weapons-grade plutonium, and one plant for salvaging plutonium from old reactor fuel, the Times said as Obama prepared to open Monday an unprecedented nuclear security summit.
The 47-nation meeting is aimed at safeguarding unsecured uranium and separated plutonium stockpiles and averting the nightmare scenario of extremist groups acquiring nuclear weapons. Three months ago, according to the Times, American intelligence officials examining satellite photographs of Pakistani nuclear facilities saw the first wisps of steam from the cooling towers of a new nuclear reactor.
It was among the three plants under construction to make fuel for a second generation of nuclear arms, the report said. Pakistan has insisted it had no choice as a US nuclear deal with India signed during the administration of Obama's predecessor George W. Bush ended a long moratorium on providing New Delhi with the fuel and technology for desperately needed nuclear power plants.
Critics of the Indian nuclear deal say the agreement may free up older facilities that India can devote to making its own new generation of weapons, escalating a regional nuclear arms race.
Pakistan has been seeking a civilian nuclear deal along the lines of a landmark agreement that the United States struck with India in 2008. The South Asian rivals stunned the world in 1998 by carrying out nuclear tests. The United States has longstanding concerns about proliferation from Pakistan - and policymakers are said to have quietly drafted a crisis plan in case the nuclear arsenal falls out of government control.
The father of Pakistan's bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has admitted leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, although he later retracted his remarks. The level of separation between Pakistan's military and civilian nuclear programs also remains a matter of dispute. Pakistan returned to civilian rule in 2008 and President Asif Ali Zardari a year later handed over control of the nuclear program to Gilani.