[Christian Science Monitor] Dan Murphy - This week Egypt became the 13th Middle Eastern country in the past year to say it wants nuclear power, intensifying an atomic race spurred largely by Iran's nuclear agenda. "To have 13 states in the region say they're interested in nuclear power over the course of a year certainly catches the eye," says Mark Fitzpatrick, a former senior nonproliferation official in the U.S. State Department who is now a fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "The Iranian angle is the reason." "The rules have changed on the nuclear subject throughout the whole region," Jordan's King Abdullah said early this year. "Where I think Jordan was saying, 'We'd like to have a nuclear-free zone in the area,'...[now] everybody's going for nuclear programs."
2007-11-01 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive