History
Pakistan was among one of the first countries (after Israel and Turkey) to take part in the Atoms for Peace program, announced by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953. The same year, Foreign Minister Sir Zafar-ulla Khan stated that Pakistan had no policy to developed nuclear weapons, and signed an agreement for cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy with the United States. In 1955, Pakistan Government established a committee of scientists to prepare a nuclear energy plans and establishment of nuclear research institutes throughout the country. In 1956, Pakistan Parliament approved the establishment of a government agency to supervise the nuclear energy establishment under the Atomic Energy Council Act of 1956. Pakistani Prime minister Huseyn Suhravadrie established the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and appointed its first chairman, Nazir Ahmad, a renowned experimental physicist. Its first Technical member was Dr. Salimuzzaman Siddiqui, who founded the agency's Chemical laboratories. Dr. Raziuddin Siddiqui, a mathematical physicist, was put in charge of the research and development directorates of the agency.
In 1960, the PAEC proposed to the chairman of the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) the construction of a heavy water production facility with production capacity of 50 kg of heavy water per day at Multan. The PIDC did not immediately act on the PAEC's proposal. Field Marshal Ayub Khan rejected the proposal, and instead transferred Dr. Nazir Ahmad immediately to the Federal Bureau of Statistics. Dr. Ishrat Hussain Usmani, a bureaucrat, was made the agency's second chairman.
In 1965, the PAEC entered with agreement with General Electric to supply the country's first nuclear power plant. Dr. Abdus Salam, Science Adviser to Pakistan's President, travelled to United States where he successfully signed an agreement with General Electric to provide country's first nuclear power plant in Karachi. He also closed an agreement with the Government of United States to provide a research reactor in Rawalpindi. It was under Salam's leadership that Edward Durell Stone designed and then led construction of a nuclear research institute in Nilore.
Following the Indo-Pak 1971 Winter War, the PAEC came under the direct control of Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. In January 1972, the commission was transferred from the Science and Technology Research Division to the Prime minister's Secretariat. Bhutto immediately replaced I. H. Usmani with Munir Ahmad Khan, a nuclear engineer working as the head of the IAEA's Reactor Engineering Division. With the appointment of Munir Khan, Bhutto orchestrated the nuclear weapons research program.
The PAEC led the groundbreaking work in the development of the nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure and atomic weapons under the administration of Munir Ahmad Khan. Munir Ahmad Khan established different laboratories, facilities and directorates mandated to design, develop and test nuclear weapons and to build plants and facilities for the enriched uranium and plutonium routes to the bomb. Under his leadership, PAEC conducted the first cold test of a working nuclear device on 11 March 1983 at Kirana Hills which was followed by another two dozen cold tests till the early 1990s. The PAEC also ran its separate nuclear power program and contributed in the electricity generation demands in Karachi. Under Munir Khan, Pakistan and China signed a joint venture of peaceful use of nuclear energy on 15 September 1986. In 1989, Pakistan and China reached an agreement under which China agreed to provide the 300MW nuclear power plant. On 28 May 1998, PAEC scientists conducted the first Pakistani test of nuclear weapons in Ras Koh Hills in Chagai District, followed by further nuclear tests in Kharan Desert. In 2001, Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) and Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) were established, and scientists belonging to PAEC's Nuclear Safety Division were given transferred to PNRA.
Read more about this topic: Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission
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