Skip to main content

IAEA to help Iraq develop peaceful nuclear programme, agency head says

1 min Mena Today

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi met Iraq's prime minister in Baghdad on Monday as part of a visit to help the country develop a peaceful nuclear programme.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, Eugene Hoshiko/Pool via Reuters

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, Eugene Hoshiko/Pool via Reuters

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi met Iraq's prime minister in Baghdad on Monday as part of a visit to help the country develop a peaceful nuclear programme.

"We have discussed several projects in Iraq, including building a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes," Iraqi Education Minister Naim al-Aboudi told reporters following a meeting between Grossi and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.

Grossi said that a team of Iraqi experts would visit the agency's headquarters in Vienna in a few days to hold meetings to "set out a road map for the Iraqi peaceful nuclear programme" amid growing interest in nuclear energy in the region, including among Arab Gulf countries.

"We see that in the (United Arab) Emirates, we see that in Egypt, we will see that in Saudi Arabia and of course we should see it here in Iraq," Grossi told reporters.

Iraq in the past had three nuclear reactors in Tuwaitha, its main nuclear research site, south of Baghdad. One was destroyed by an Israeli air raid in 1981 and the two others by U.S. warplanes in the 1991 Gulf war that followed Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"Definitely, turning the page on this complex past is of the essence and we're doing just that," Grossi said.

Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed

Related

Lebanon

Israeli strikes in Lebanon kill 4, Lebanese health ministry says

Israeli forces killed four people in southern Lebanon on Monday, Lebanon's National News Agency reported, citing the health ministry, in two separate strikes that the Israeli military said targeted members of the Shi'ite Muslim armed group Hezbollah.

Lebanon

Inside Hezbollah’s medical network

Kuwait has added eight Lebanese hospitals to its national sanctions list over alleged links to terrorism, according to the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai. The hospitals are all located in areas where Hezbollah is influential: southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Mena banner 4

To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.

  • Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.