Al Ula is a small city in northwest Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Energy Ministry earlier this month denied having built a uranium ore facility in the area.
PHOTO: AHMED YOSRI/REUTERS-
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WASHINGTON—A bipartisan group of U.S. senators warned President Trump on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia’s undeclared nuclear and missile programs pose a serious threat to efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons in the region and requested briefings on the subject.
The letter follows a Wall Street Journal report earlier this month that the Saudis, with Chinese help, had constructed a facility for extracting uranium yellowcake from uranium ore, an advance in the oil-rich kingdom’s drive to master nuclear technology, according to Western officials.
“Saudi Arabia is positioning itself to develop the front-end of the [nuclear] fuel cycle. These technologies, if unchecked, would give Riyadh a latent capacity to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), along with two other Democratic and three Republican senators, wrote in a letter to the president.
The Saudi Energy Ministry earlier this month categorically denied having built a uranium ore facility in the area of northwest Saudi Arabia described by some of the Western officials. It said that extraction of minerals—including uranium—is a key part of the country’s economic diversification strategy.
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Manufacturing uranium yellowcake, a milled form of uranium ore, is a relatively early step in the nuclear cycle. It takes multiple additional steps and technology to process and enrich uranium sufficiently for it to power a civil nuclear energy plant. At very high enrichment levels, uranium can fuel a nuclear weapon.
The senators’ letter also cited reports that Saudi Arabia has made significant strides with Chinese help in developing the infrastructure to produce advanced ballistic missiles.
U.S. lawmakers have sought to restrict Washington’s support to the Saudi nuclear program until it agrees to a more intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency inspection regime known as the Additional Protocol and promises to forgo enriching uranium or reprocessing spent fuel.
“It’s significant you have a bipartisan group of senators raising these concerns,” Mr. Van Hollen said of the letter to Mr. Trump, which also was signed by Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine), Tim Kaine (D., Va.), Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.), Jerry Moran (R., Kan.) and Rand Paul (R., Ky.).
“The Saudis appear to be hiding significant parts of their nuclear program, which calls into question their intentions,” Mr. Van Hollen said in an interview, adding that “China is exploiting the situation.”
The White House had no immediate comment on the letter.
In a separate letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday, three Democratic House members led by Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas expressed alarm about China’s reported provision of nuclear and missile technology to Saudi Arabia. Construction of the yellowcake facility “raises further questions about whether Riyadh’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes,” they told Mr. Pompeo.
In response to the Journal report on the yellowcake facility, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said earlier this month that Beijing “will continue our strict fulfillment of international obligations in nonproliferation, and pursue cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy with other countries on the basis of mutual respect and shared benefit.”
—Lindsay Wise contributed to this article