Iraq discusses building nuclear reactor
The nuclear plant at Tuwaitha that was destroyed in the Gulf War. Photo: Getty Images
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, chaired a meeting of the Ministerial Council for National Security to discuss the latest security developments, the most important challenges, and the use of nuclear energy to generate electricity.
The spokesman for the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces, Yahya Rasool, confirmed that the meeting addressed the construction of a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes.
Rasool clarified through his official account on X, formerly Twitter, that power generation from a nuclear reactor will contribute to reducing reliance on other sources of energy such as gas and oil, which will have a positive impact on the stability of electric power in the long term.
Rasool confirmed in his statement that the Minister of Higher Education, the Minister of Scientific Research, the Minister of Electricity, and a technical committee tasked with nuclear energy attended the meeting.
In early October 2022, the head of the Iraqi Radioactive Sources Regulatory Authority (IRSRA), Kamal Hussein Latif, announced the postponement of a project to build the first nuclear power plant in Iraq due to the failure to form a new government.
Latif elaborated that several countries expressed their willingness to help Iraq build nuclear reactors, adding that Iraq needs nuclear power plants in light of the regular power outages.
The Iraqi authorities planned to build a nuclear power plant in the country to meet the demand for electricity.
In 2021, Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, a Russian state corporation specialized in nuclear energy and one of the world leaders in nuclear fuel production, announced that it would discuss the prospects for cooperation with Iraq in this field.
Iraq’s previous nuclear power reactors, built during Saddam Hussein’s rule, were destroyed almost thirty years ago, according to The New Arab.
The country had three reactors in Tuwaitha, its main nuclear research site located south of Baghdad.
One of the three reactors was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 1981, and the other two were destroyed by US strikes during the 1991 Gulf War following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait the previous year.