| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| UN asks Iraq to ratify atomic inspection protocol |
| 2010-02-28 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] The Security Council on Friday urged Iraq to ratify an agreement requiring it to accept intrusive inspections by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, which dismantled a covert Iraqi atom bomb program in the 1990s. The Security Council said it could consider lifting trade restrictions it imposed on Iraq's civilian nuclear program and other industries after its 1990 invasion of neighboring Kuwait if Iraq ratified the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) so-called Additional Protocol, among other steps. Iraq has already signed the IAEA Additional Protocol, submitted it to parliament for ratification and agreed to implement it provisionally until it enters into force. It has also pledged to never again develop nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. If the trade restrictions are lifted, diplomats said Iraq would once again be able to buy nuclear materials and technology, as well as dual-use chemicals, such as certain pesticides, which it needs for agriculture. The restrictions were put in place to stop former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs. The declaration, which was agreed to by all 15 Security Council members, also asked the Vienna-based IAEA to report to the council on Iraq's implementation of the protocol. Baghdad, a major oil exporter, has said it wants a civilian nuclear program to generate electricity. Its neighbor Iran is under U.N. sanctions for defying Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment, a nuclear fuel program that Tehran began secretly during its 1980-1988 war with Iraq. Iran declared the program to the IAEA two decades later, a year after exiles revealed its existence. |
| Posted by:Fred |