ARAB STATES JOINING RACE FOR THE BOMB
Pat Wilde, The Scotsman
THE world was facing the prospect of a new nuclear race last night, after it emerged that four Arab nations are to embark on atomic energy programmes.
As a coalition of western nations continued attempts to stop Iran creating a deadly weapons capability out of its new nuclear-power capacity, the world's nuclear watchdog revealed that Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia had declared an interest in developing civilian programmes, as permitted under international law.
Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates have also expressed an interest in developing a nuclear energy programme.
Tomihiro Taniguchi, deputy director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, said the countries had responded to the growing shortage of natural gas by developing domestic nuclear power programmes.
"Some Middle East states, including Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, have shown initial interests to use nuclear power primarily for
desalination purposes. We will offer them help under our technical advisory programme," Taniguchi said.
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1638452006