The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed a 30-year nuclear agreement, under which Washington will help the Gulf country build a nuclear programme.
Last Wednesday, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman signed the “123 Agreement” on nuclear cooperation, giving the deal its final approval.
The agreement allows US companies to transfer nuclear technology abroad. The US government makes such agreements under Section 123 of the country’s Atomic Energy Act.
Most of what is contained in the Saudi-US agreement is unknown for now. But some analysts have expressed concern over whether the agreement has enough safeguards to prevent a nuclear-arms race in an already unstable Middle East.
Both the United States and Saudi Arabia are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which works against nuclear proliferation, was not involved in this bilateral agreement. So it is unclear how safeguards will be applied in this case. Saudi Arabia is also not a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a bloc of 48 countries that works to control the export of nuclear material and technology. As a result, it is not yet clear how the country will obtain key nuclear technology and uranium.
But this agreement is only the latest addition to several existing nuclear programmes in the Middle East, many of them civilian. Here is what else is known about these programmes.
What the US and Saudi Arabia agreed
Exactly what the agreement contains is unclear. But as a bilateral safeguards agreement, it can be expected that Saudi Arabia’s nuclear programme will stay within the limits of civilian-reactor needs. The programme is also not to reach a level suitable for, or close to, making nuclear weapons. To ensure these things, the agreement may contain a process of oversight through US inspectors.
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters: “The United States will not reach any agreement with any country in the world that creates a risk of nuclear-weapons proliferation.”
US companies that make nuclear reactors, such as Westinghouse, are thought likely to benefit from this agreement.
The agreement will now be submitted to the US Congress for review. It could face opposition from lawmakers of both the Republican and Democratic parties. But the opposing lawmakers are not expected to be in the majority. In that case, the agreement will take effect automatically at the end of the 90-day review period.
Which Middle East countries have nuclear programmes
In 2025 the United States joined Israel’s 12-day war against Iran, carrying out one-day air strikes on three of the country’s main nuclear facilities.
Then, on February 28, those two allies began another war against Iran. According to the United States, one of the main reasons behind it was to prevent the country from making nuclear weapons. But Tehran has repeatedly insisted that it is maintaining only a civilian nuclear programme.
In 1953 the then US President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched the “Atoms for Peace” programme. Its main aim was to use nuclear technology for good purposes such as electricity generation and medicine, rather than for war. Under this programme, with US cooperation, Iran began its first nuclear work in 1957. And to monitor and oversee that no country in the world could use the technology to build a nuclear bomb, the international agency the IAEA was formed that year. Iran also signed the NPT in 1974.
Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant was built at that time by German companies. But in the early 2000s the IAEA identified that Iran had built uranium-enrichment centres at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow with Pakistan’s help. As a result, allegations arose that Tehran was working to make nuclear weapons.
Against this backdrop, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran over several years. Alongside this, the United States and Israel targeted Iran through cyberattacks and the killing of nuclear scientists.
In 2003 Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (killed in a US-Israeli attack on February 28, the first day of the Iran war) issued a fatwa declaring that his country would not acquire nuclear weapons.
Under US President Barack Obama, in 2015 Iran signed a nuclear agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Under the agreement, Tehran agreed to keep its uranium enrichment limited to a little over 3 percent — enough for power-generating reactors, but far below the level needed to make nuclear weapons.
Iran also gave the IAEA unprecedented access to its nuclear facilities. This is considered the most intensive oversight the IAEA has ever obtained in any country. The IAEA and US intelligence agencies repeatedly concluded that Iran was complying with the agreement and maintaining low-level enrichment.
But in his first term, in 2018, US President Donald Trump claimed the agreement was vague and was creating a threat to Israel. On this pretext the United States withdrew from the agreement and re-imposed sanctions on Iran. In response, Iran too began raising its level of uranium enrichment.
In June 2025 an IAEA report said Iran had stockpiled more than 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent — close to the 90 percent enrichment needed to make weapons. Shortly afterwards the United States and Israel together began the 12-day war with Iran.
Trump claimed that the 2025 US bombing had destroyed Iran’s nuclear programme. In August the UN also re-imposed sanctions on Iran. Despite this, last February the United States and Israel again began a war with Iran.
Israel
Israel refuses to say whether it has nuclear weapons. But it is considered the only country in the Middle East with advanced nuclear weapons. Its policy on this is extremely vague.
Israel is not a signatory to the NPT. As a result, the IAEA cannot assess its capabilities. Since the 1980s Israel has directly refused to submit detailed information to the agency.
According to the research organisation the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), Israel has had nuclear weapons since the 1960s and has about 90 nuclear warheads. Israel also has enough stockpiled uranium and plutonium to make another 300 nuclear weapons.
It is believed that in 1979 Israel, together with apartheid-era South Africa, carried out a test of its nuclear weapons. The country’s most important nuclear centre is the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, near the southern city of Dimona. This centre was built in 1957 with France’s help.
Israel claims the Dimona reactor is used for civilian purposes. But in 1980 an Israeli whistle-blower released documents and photographs from the centre to the media, which proved true long-standing suspicions about Israel’s advanced nuclear capability. Satellite images taken in 2025 showed expansion work under way at the Dimona centre — even while Israel and the United States were striking Iran.
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates began its fully civilian nuclear programme in 2009 by signing a “123 Agreement” with Washington. The country said it would not enrich uranium domestically or reprocess spent fuel — the materials needed to make a nuclear bomb. The country is also an NPT signatory.
The Barakah nuclear power plant is the centrepiece of the UAE’s nuclear infrastructure. This huge plant was built in 2012 and has four South Korean-designed reactors that use US technology.
US experts were also involved in building the plant and training local workers. Barakah produces about 5,600 megawatts of electricity — about a quarter of the UAE’s electricity demand. The IAEA has full access to the plant and can monitor its operations through real-time camera access.
Turkey
Turkey has no nuclear weapons of its own. But against the backdrop of the war against Iran, government officials appear to be changing their position.
The NATO ally Turkey hosts US nuclear weapons. Lacking its own nuclear bomb, the country has long relied on this US nuclear arrangement to protect itself from attack or threats by potential enemy states. Turkey is also an NPT signatory.
Turkey has maintained its civilian nuclear infrastructure through the Akkuyu nuclear power plant. The plant is designed and maintained by Russia. It produces up to 4,800 megawatts of electricity — about 10 percent of the country’s total electricity supply.
After Iran’s war with the United States and Israel began in February, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said his country could acquire nuclear weapons — signalling a major shift.
Analysts have said Turkey may begin expanding its civilian nuclear programme. But the authorities have kept up a strategic ambiguity on the matter. A “Research Istanbul” survey conducted during the 2025 Iran war found that 71 percent of respondents voted in favour of nuclear weapons.
Egypt
As an NPT signatory, Egypt too maintains a fully civilian nuclear programme for electricity generation and desalinating seawater. The country’s Al-Dabaa nuclear power plant is currently under construction by Russia and, by 2028, could produce up to 4,800 megawatts of electricity. Like Turkey, Egypt is under Russia’s supervision for its spent nuclear fuel.
Egypt also has a research reactor to produce the isotopes needed for medical research. In the 1960s, under President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt secretly began a military nuclear programme to counter Israel, but it failed.
Iraq
In the 1970s, under President Saddam Hussein, Iraq is known to have secretly tried to build nuclear weapons. The country bought the Osirak reactor from France and installed it at the Tuwaitha nuclear research centre near Baghdad.
During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Iran attacked the reactor, and a year later Israel bombed it. During the 1991 Gulf War the United States also struck the centre. After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the IAEA confirmed that the nuclear programme had been destroyed.
In recent times Iraq has sought partnerships with China and Russia to build nuclear power plants to end long-running power cuts.
Pakistan
Right next to the Middle East, Pakistan has built a large stockpile of advanced nuclear weapons to counter its rival India. Whereas India has a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons, Pakistan’s position has long been vague.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Pakistan is thought to have 170 nuclear warheads. India, by contrast, has 190. Analysts have said they believe Pakistan expanded its nuclear programme after a brief conflict with India in May 2025. Neither Pakistan nor India has signed the NPT.
In the 1950s Pakistan was part of Eisenhower’s nuclear programme. But after independence in 1947, having been drawn into three wars with India, the country began pursuing nuclear weapons in the 1970s. India itself began nuclear tests around the same time.
Pakistan’s then prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, declared at the time: “We will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will make our own nuclear bomb.”
The nuclear programme was built mainly under the leadership of the physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan. He secured a network to obtain uranium from Niger. Pakistan’s highly enriched uranium is produced at its Kahuta and Gadwal centres.
Pakistan shared nuclear technology and weapons with Iran, Libya and North Korea. In 2003, after sanctions were imposed on his country, Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi surrendered his country’s nuclear infrastructure to the IAEA.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report