CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak said on Monday that Egypt is to build several nuclear power stations, relaunching a nuclear program frozen more than 20 years ago.
Mubarak said during the inauguration of a Cairo power station that a decree would be issued in a few days time to establish a higher council for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, the official Mena news agency reported.
Mubarak said the program will be developed in cooperation with the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) within a framework of transparency and respect of commitments to the nuclear non-proliferation system.
Egypt initiated a nuclear energy program in the 1970s but abandoned it in 1986 after the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. Mubarak s government recently outlined plans to revive it.
Egypt will go through with the nuclear energy project in the belief that energy security is a basic element in building the future of the homeland and part and parcel of Egypt s national security system, Mubarak said.
The 79-year-old president did not say which countries would cooperate in the construction of the power stations, nor how many were planned, but last year he discussed nuclear cooperation during visits to Russia and China.
In November last year, Mubarak stressed that Egypt did not need anyone s permission to develop nuclear energy, having signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Egypt announced last year that it would begin studying the possibility of building a nuclear power station by 2020.
Egyptian Electricity Minister Hassan Younes said at the time that Egypt wanted to build a 1,000-megawatt nuclear plant at Dabaa on the Mediterranean coast to the east of Alexandria.
He said that the plant would cost $1.5 billion and would require foreign investment.
Egypt has sought to reassure the international community by insisting that it will not import enriched uranium, amid tensions over the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea.
Analysts have argued that a nuclear alliance between Egypt and China – and possibly including Russia – could rile the United States, Egypt s traditional ally.
Egypt recently stepped up its criticism of what it says are the double standards of the international community after European Union countries refused to back Cairo s call for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East.
Egypt and Syria in September urged the IAEA to pass a resolution condemning Israel for possessing nuclear weapons. Israel is the Middle East s sole nuclear power.
The West, however, views Iran as the greatest threat to peace.
The United States accuses Tehran of trying to develop an atomic bomb under the guise of a peaceful nuclear energy drive.
