Fissile material production potential in South Asia

A.H. Nayyar, A.H. Toor, Zia Mian, "Fissile material production potential in South Asia," Science & Global Security, 6, no. 2, (1997): 189-203.
The cases of India and Pakistan show how civilian nuclear activities could potentially contribute significantly to the production of weapons-grade fissile materials. The paper estimates the amount of weapons-grade plutonium that could have been produced from unsafeguarded power reactors in India if these reactors were operated deliberately for this purpose, and the rate at which Pakistan could accumulate weapons-grade uranium if it used its stockpile of low-enriched uranium as feed material to its enrichment facilities. These estimates are not judgments of what these countries have actually done or intend to do, but are forwarded to call attention to an issue that will have to be addressed under a fissile material production cutoff in South Asia and elsewhere.

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