IAEA Will Help Iraq Develop a Nuclear Program for Peaceful Purposes

JAKARTA - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will help Iraq develop a nuclear program for peaceful purposes, when the head of the agency met with the country's prime minister.

"We have discussed several projects in Iraq, including building a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes," Iraqi Education Minister Naim al-Aboudi told reporters, after a meeting between IAEA Chief Rafael Grossi and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, as reported by Reuters, March 19.

Meanwhile Grossi said a team of Iraqi experts would visit the agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria in the coming days, to hold meetings to "define a roadmap for Iraq's peaceful nuclear program", amid growing interest in nuclear energy in the region, including among the Arab Gulf countries.

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

Iraq has in the past had three nuclear reactors at Tuwaitha, its main nuclear research site, south of Baghdad. One was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 1981. The other two were destroyed by US warplanes in the 1991 Gulf War, following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

"Of course, turning a new page on this complex past is important and we are doing just that," Grossi said.