The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, met with the Iraqi Prime Minister in Baghdad today as part of a visit aimed at assisting Iraq in developing a peaceful nuclear program. Iraqi Minister of Education Naeem al-Aboudi stated to journalists following Grossi's meeting with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani: "We discussed several projects in Iraq, including the construction of a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes."
Grossi explained that a team of Iraqi experts will visit the agency's headquarters in Vienna in the coming days to hold meetings "to establish a roadmap for the Iraqi peaceful nuclear program" amid growing interest in nuclear energy in the region, including the Gulf states. He mentioned to reporters: "We see that (interest) in the UAE, we see that in Egypt, and we will see that in Saudi Arabia, and certainly we should see that here in Iraq."
Grossi added: "Certainly, turning the page on this complicated past is essential, and we are doing that." Iraq once had three nuclear reactors in the Tuwaitha area south of Baghdad, which was the country's main nuclear research site. An Israeli airstrike destroyed one of these sites in 1981, while American airstrikes destroyed the other two during the Gulf War in 1991 following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
