CAIRO: The proposed nuclear plant in Dabaa will be built to the “highest international standards,” President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi told International Atomic Energy Agency Director Yukiya Amano Thursday evening in New York City, a presidency statement announced.
Sisi also stressed the need to create a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, including compliance by all nations to scrutiny. Egypt, as a member state of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is treaty bound to not acquire nuclear weapons, and to open all facilities with nuclear capabilities to IAEA scrutiny. Although it does not disclose it, Israel is the only Middle Eastern country to possess nuclear weapons, and has refused to sign the NPT.
Amano, who visited Egypt in April, praised the “high standard” to which the Children’s Cancer Hospital in Cairo in the use of radioactive isotopes to provide treatment, and stressed the importance of peaceful uses of nuclear energy, particularly the fight against cancer, the presidency added.
In February, Sisi and Russian President Putin announced reaching agreements on building the plant and establishing a Russian-Egyptian free trade zone.
In 1981, Egypt allocated the Dabaa area in Mediterranean governorate of Matrouh, 183.9 miles to the northwest of Cairo, to build its first nuclear plant of 55 square kilometers.
A Russian delegation of 300 businessmen had visited Egypt in May to discuss ways to promote and diversify bilateral economic relations between the two countries, Russian-Egyptian Business Council said in a statement.