Arab leaders meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Sunday said they intended to start a joint nuclear energy development program, a move certain to heighten concerns over a possible race for nuclear power in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council concluded a two-day summit meeting on Sunday evening, agreeing to study how to proceed with development of such capabilities. At the same time, they called for a peaceful settlement of the crisis over Iran's nuclear program, which the US and some other Western nations say is for development of nuclear arms.
"The states of the region have a right to possess nuclear energy technology for peaceful purposes," the meeting's closing communique said, echoing Iran's insistence that it, too, has the right to peaceful nuclear technology.
Publicly, officials of the gulf council said the development of a nuclear energy program would help meet the rising demand for electricity in the region.
"Nuclear technology is an important technology to have for generating power and the gulf states will need it equally," said Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister.
"It is not a threat," al-Faisal said.
"It is an announcement so that there will be no misinterpretation for what we are doing," he said.
But analysts and officials said the announcement actually had quite a different purpose -- to warn the US not to acquiesce to Iran's nuclear ambitions as pressure grows on the Bush administration to reach out to Iran for help in stabilizing Iraq.
"The message is that the gulf countries will develop their own nuclear program if Iran is rewarded with the terms of the Baker-Hamilton report," Abdelaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, who is familiar with the nuclear initiative, said.
"They are trying to say that if the Iranian program continues, you will force us to become nuclear-capable too," he said.
At a Persian Gulf security conference in Bahrain on Saturday, Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, said that Iran was seeking only peaceful nuclear capability.
"The time of nuclear weapons is over," Mottaki said.
FEELING THREATENED: The first military commission under Kim Jong-un’s leadership to last longer than a day is a sign of a growing escalatory doctrine, an analyst said North Korea discussed assigning additional duties to its frontline army units at a key military meeting, state media said yesterday, suggesting that the country might deploy battlefield nuclear weapons targeting South Korea along the rivals’ tense border. The discussion comes as South Korean officials said North Korea has finished preparations for its first nuclear test in five years, as part of possible efforts to build a warhead to be mounted on short-range weapons capable of hitting targets in South Korea. During an ongoing meeting of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers’ Party on Wednesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and
TRADE TALK: Xiao Qian said that Australia had fired the ‘first shot’ in deteriorating trade relations with China, but improvements were possible if Canberra takes action China’s new ambassador to Australia chided protesters who heckled him yesterday during a speech about the future of relations between the two countries. Xiao Qian (肖千), who has only been in the role since January, had just begun his speech at the University of Technology Sydney when the first protesters interjected, calling for freedom for Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. The ambassador was repeatedly interrupted by sign-wielding protesters, some criticizing China’s treatment of the Uighur people as well as the university for inviting Xiao to speak. “People who are coming again and again to interrupt the process, that’s not expression of freedom of
China’s COVID-19 outbreak is shifting to its south coast, with a flareup in Shenzhen triggering mass testing and a lockdown of some neighborhoods, while Macau — an hour’s drive away — is racing to stop its first outbreak in eight months. The new cases come as China’s two most important cities, Beijing and Shanghai, look to be subduing the virus after months of strict curbs and repeated testing. Shanghai yesterday reported nine local cases, while Beijing reported five. Nationwide, China yesterday reported 34 new COVID-19 infections. Yet new clusters continue to emerge, prompting action from local officials. Borders are increasingly under pressure, with
New Zealand stargazers were left puzzled and awed by strange, spiraling light formations in the night sky on Sunday night. At about 7:25pm, Alasdair Burns, a stargazing guide on Stewart Island, also called Rakiura, received a text from a friend saying to go outside and look at the sky. He went out and saw a huge, blue spiral of light amid the darkness. “It looked like an enormous spiral galaxy, just hanging there in the sky,” Burns said. “Quite an eerie feeling.” “We quickly banged on the doors of all our neighbors to get them out as well. And so there were
RSS