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
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
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday that the military would never fully withdraw from the Gaza Strip for security reasons and that a civilian-military army unit would be established in the Palestinian enclave.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, met on Monday with Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al-Busaidi, FM of Oman, to review bilateral relations and discuss regional and international developments.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday he called Israeli President Isaac Herzog and invited him to visit Australia, expressing his shock and dismay over the attack at the Jewish community Chanukah event on Bondi Beach last week.
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.