Iran leads nuclear drive in the Middle East

Egypt's plan to build four nuclear powerplants by 2025 underscores the emerging interest in atomic energy across the Middle East, where even oil-rich nations such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are eyeing fossil fuel alternatives to satisfy growing demand. In the region and beyond all eyes are on Iran, which says it is firing up its first nuclear reactor before the end of this year, becoming the first Muslim country in the Middle East to produce nuclear energy.
The announcement that the Russian-built Bushehr reactor in southern Iran will start up in October or November rang alarm bells in the region and beyond.
Iran's neighbours and world powers largely suspect that behind its claimed drive to acquire atomic energy for peaceful purposes, Tehran's anti-Western government is hiding a covert atomic weapons programme.
Though wary of Iran, Middle Eastern states want to harness nuclear energy more out of necessity than competition with Iran, some analysts and officials say.
"It is a matter of energy," said Mostafa el-Feki, who heads the Egyptian parliament's foreign relations committee and who was Egypt's ambassador to Austria and its representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency

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