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| Kuwait living in fear of nuclear Iran, says expert |
| 2008-09-17 |
| (AKI) - Kuwait is afraid that Iran has secret plans to produce nuclear arms at the Bushehr nuclear reactor in the country's southwest and elsewhere in the country, according to the head of a leading think-tank. Sami Al-Faraj, president of the Kuwait Centre for Strategic Studies, told Adnkronos International (AKI) on Tuesday that the country "was living in fear" about Tehran's nuclear plans. He said Kuwaitis also had serious concerns about the potential impact of a radiation leak or an earthquake in the area surrounding the Bushehr nuclear plant, which is only 200 kilometres from Kuwait. "We would be the first city to be hit as a result of the impact if anything goes wrong at Bushehr," Al-Faraj told AKI. "People say that there is no need for us to to suffer from Bushehr. The greater problem is that something will go wrong. We are under threat. The situation is dangerous" "We have 17 monitoring stations and all these stations have extra equipment for monitoring radiation.Unless this problem is dealt with scientifically, we will remain in danger." Media reports on Monday claimed that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reportedly has a secret plan to accelerate nuclear arms production by simulating a breakdown at the nuclear reactor of Bushehr. According to a memorandum circulated among intelligence services and cited in the Italian daily, La Stampa, the plan was developed after Israeli defence forces struck a suspected nuclear facility in northern Syria in September 2007. Al-Faraj said many people in Kuwait were preoccupied by the threat from Iran. "Iran today is intervening in the affairs of Arab nations next to us - Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine," he said. "So we always ask the rhetorical question, 'Imagine if Iran were to be a nuclear power, what would Iran do.' "If it is a conventional power and intervening in nations and trying to change the loyalties of Arab states, like Kuwait, Saudia Arabia and Bahrain, can we imagine what Iraq could do if it possessed a nuclear weapon. "We cannot even imagine and we cannot imagine the international community letting Iran get away with this." Al-Faraj said the other threat was conflict between Iran and Israel if a nuclear Iran does not materialise and Kuwait is caught in a crossfire. "We would be in the middle of two nations exchanging missiles," he said. "I am giving you a doomsday scenario but we cannot live without expecting a worst case scenario." |
| Posted by:Fred |