THE civil nuclear deal between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States has attracted immense attention from nuclear analysts, giving rise to the impression that something extraordinary has happened and that it will have a transformative impact on regional and global politics. Ironically, many analysts have failed to examine the agreement’s details, which are classified carefully. Moreover, they are underestimating Washington and Riyadh’s commitments and responsibilities as a supplier and recipient states, which are enshrined in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Supplier Group. The US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed the peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement, known colloquially as 123 agreements (after the relevant section in the US Atomic Energy Act (AEA) of 1954), along with a bilateral safeguards agreement on July 23, 2026. The said agreement has political and commercial consequences. Simultaneously, it faces two important hurdles, ie, Trump’s Israel policy and the exaggerated fears over nuclear weapon proliferation, due to Saudi and the US civil nuclear deal.
The puzzling aspect is President Donald Trump’s association with the Abraham Accords, which he initiated to normalize Arab nations’ relations with Israel on September 15, 2020, despite Israel’s aggressive military doctrine in the Middle East and genocide of the Palestinians and military aggression against Iran and Lebanon. Immediately after finalization of the nuclear cooperation agreement, President Trump announced that a civil nuclear deal between the US and Saudi Arabia was conditional on Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords. He said in a post on Truth Social, “The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!)… pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.”
Another hurdle is the nuclear non-proliferaionist and anti-Saudi lobby’s speculative suspicions and improper demand that Saudi Arabia permanently relinquish fuel cycle activities, namely uranium enrichment and reprocessing of the spent fuel for civilian use. They have viewed Saudi Arabia as a potential proliferator, because Saudi leaders explicitly said that if Iran develops nuclear weapons, it will follow suit. Fairly speaking, uranium enrichment and reprocessing of the spent fuel for civilian use are permitted to Non-Nuclear Weapons States (NNWS) of the NPT. Saudi Arabia is a NNWS of the NPT; therefore, it requires (under Article III of the NPT) that these activities shall be under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) comprehensive safeguards. A few non-proliferation alarmists insist that Saudi Arabia adopt the US gold standard for nuclear technology–sharing, i.e., forgoing the right to enrichment and also accept the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which would grant inspectors short-notice access to undeclared sites. Saudi Arabia currently refuses to accept the US gold standard, like Turkiye and the UAE and the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, opting instead for standard comprehensive safeguards. Like some NNWS, it takes the position that comprehensive IAEA safeguards are sufficient to prevent nuclear proliferation; therefore, the Additional Protocol is unnecessary and burdensome.
The AEA 1954 requires that US reactor and reactor fuel exports be subject to the terms of Section 123 of the AEA (42 USC 2153). It specifies what ought to take place before nuclear cooperation occurs between the US and the recipient state. Section 123, Clause A, states that the proposed agreement shall include the terms, conditions, duration, nature and scope of cooperation and lists nine criteria that the agreement must meet. These nine principles are: safeguards on nuclear material and equipment transferred continue in perpetuity, full-scope safeguards are applied in non-nuclear weapon states, nothing transferred is used for any nuclear explosive device or for any other military purpose, the US has the right of return if the cooperating state detonates a nuclear explosive device or terminates or abrogates an IAEA safeguards agreement, there is no transfer of material or classified data without US consent, physical security is maintained, there is no enrichment or reprocessing by the recipient state without prior approval, storage is approved by United States for plutonium and highly enriched uranium and anything produced through cooperation is subject to all of the above. Without Riyadh documentary compliance, the US Congress will not approve it.
Thirdly, the nuclear supplying states constituted the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), at the behest of the United States in 1975. The primary purpose was to ensure that suppliers uniformly applied a comprehensive set of guidelines to ensure that nuclear cooperation did not contribute to nuclear weapons proliferation. In their 2004 meeting, the NSG members, including the US, adopted a ‘catch-all’ mechanism that authorizes members to block any export suspected of being destined for a nuclear weapons program, even if the export does not appear on one of the control lists. To be eligible for importing from an NSG member, states must have comprehensive IAEA safeguards covering all their nuclear activities and facilities. The preceding arrangements are enough to prevent Saudi Arabia from using the US nuclear cooperation for developing nuclear weapons. Thus, the objective analysis is that the US—Saudi nuclear deal will not be an enabler to Riyadh’s nuclear weapons programme.
—The writer is Vice Chancellor of the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
