Iraq asked on Saturday for assistance in building a nuclear power reactor for peaceful purposes, more than 25 years after the destruction of the reactors it had under the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein.
“Iraq calls for assistance from our kindred nuclear countries to build a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes ... in accordance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari told the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Reuters reported.
Iraq 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 US airplanes in the 1991 Persian Gulf war that followed Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
In related news, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said on Sunday talks are continuing with Royal Dutch Shell on the Majnoon Oilfield that the company is said to be seeking to quit.
“There are still negotiations; things are not clear,” Luaibi told a news conference in Baghdad. “We haven’t initiated talks with other companies.”
A letter signed by Luaibi, dated Aug. 23 and seen by Reuters, gave approval for Shell to quit Majnoon, a major oilfield near Basra, which started production in 2014.
Industry sources told Reuters last year that Shell was considering selling out of its oilfields in Iraq as part of its global $30 billion asset disposal program.
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