The Egyptian president on Monday announced plans to build several nuclear power plants -- the latest in a string of such ambitious proposals from moderate Arab countries. The US immediately welcomed the plan, drawing a sharp contrast to what it called nuclear "cheating" by Iran.
President Hosni Mubarak, in a speech broadcast live on national television, said the aim was to diversify Egypt's energy resources and preserve its oil and gas reserves for future generations. He pledged Egypt would work with the UN nuclear watchdog agency at all times, and would not seek a nuclear bomb.
But Mubarak also made clear there were strategic reasons for the program, calling secure sources of energy "an integral part of Egypt's national security system."
In Washington, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said the US would not object to the program as long as Egypt adhered to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) guidelines.
"The problem has arisen, specifically in the case of Iran, where you have a country that has made certain commitments, and in our view and the shared view of many ... [is] cheating on those obligations," he said.
"For those states who want to pursue peaceful nuclear energy ... that's not a problem for us," McCormack said. "Those are countries that we can work with."
The US accuses Iran of using the cover of a peaceful nuclear program to secretly work toward building a bomb, an allegation Iran denies. Iran asserts it has a right to peaceful nuclear power and needs it to meet its economy's voracious energy needs.
But Iran's program has prompted a slew of Middle East countries to announce plans of their own -- in part simply to blunt Iran's rising regional influence.
"A lot of this is political and strategic," said Jon Wolfsthal, a nonproliferation expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Egypt is highly sensitive to the fact that Iran hopes to open its Bushehr nuclear plant next year, said Mohamed Abdel-Salam, director of the regional security program at al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
"[Iran's] regional role as well as Iran's political use of the nuclear issue have added to Egypt's sensitivity," he said.
Other Arab countries' recent nuclear announcements "added extra pressure on Egypt not to delay any more."
Jordan, Turkey and several Gulf countries have announced in recent months that they are interested in developing nuclear power programs, and Yemen's government last month signed a deal with a US company to build civilian nuclear plants over the next 10 years.
Algeria also signed a cooperation accord with the US on civil nuclear energy in June and Morocco announced a deal last week under which France will help develop nuclear reactors there.
Despite the declarations of peaceful intentions, there are worries the countries could be taking the first steps toward a dangerous proliferation in the volatile Middle East.
Such fears intensified when Israel launched a Sept. 6 airstrike against Syria, a country allied with Iran that the US accuses of supporting terrorism.
US officials have been quoted in news reports as saying the strike targeted a North Korean-style structure that could have been used for the start of a nuclear reactor.
Syria says it has no nuclear program and the building was an unused military facility.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, this weekend criticized Israel and the US for failing to provide the IAEA with any evidence backing up the claim of a Syrian nuclear program.
Following a policy it calls "nuclear ambiguity," Israel has never confirmed nor denied having a nuclear weapons program itself.
But Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at an Israeli nuclear plant, spent 18 years in prison after going public with details of Israel's atomic program in 1986.
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