{"id":240,"date":"2006-12-12T10:57:42","date_gmt":"2006-12-12T06:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=240"},"modified":"2006-12-12T11:08:55","modified_gmt":"2006-12-12T07:08:55","slug":"al-chernobyl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/240\/","title":{"rendered":"Al-Chernobyl"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gulf Arab leaders are considering a joint civilian nuclear programme, a move that could heighten proliferation concerns in the oil-rich region.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

reports<\/a> the Financial Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The decision to order a study, announced at the end of a two-day summit in Riyadh attended by leaders from the Gulf Co-operation Council, comes at a time of mounting Arab concern over Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions and its growing regional power.<\/p>\n

Abdul-Rahman al-Attiya, the secretary-general of the GCC, which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, stressed that Gulf countries had the right to nuclear energy technology for peaceful purposes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To which my response is: who are they trying to kid?\u00a0\u00a0The GCC is a robust enough\u00a0forum for\u00a0agreeing on\u00a0some matters, such as visa free travel for its citizens\u00a0and the like, but unfortunately the rulers and citizens of the Gulf States\u00a0usually have egos which match their hydrocarbon reserves for size, thus reducing cooperation on anything substantial to petty squabbling and endless bickering.\u00a0 One of the more tedious aspects of developing business along the whole length of the Gulf was being told in each country that our regional head office should be located in the country I was currently in, as to be based out of another was a snub which displeased them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Take by way of a more serious example the fact that the UAE and Saudi Arabia can’t even agree on where their borders lie<\/a>, a disupute which has led Saudi to block the route<\/a> of a pipeline between Qatar and the UAE.\u00a0 And witness the withdrawal of Qatar and then Abu Dhabi<\/a> from Gulf Air<\/a>, the two throwing cooperation to the wind and instead going it alone as soon as the oil price rose to sufficiently fill the government coffers, leaving\u00a0poorer Oman and Bahrain to run\u00a0the airline\u00a0by themselves.\u00a0 Unless the subject of the day is denouncing Israel the level of cooperation between the Gulf states is woeful, and headlines are more often made by one or other of them announcing some mega<\/a>–project<\/a> which threatens to be whiter and more elephant-like than Dubai’s Palm Islands than anything which describes a genuine breakthrough in cooperation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And now we’re expected to believe that the GCC are going to cooperate in the building of a joint nuclear programme?\u00a0 If they ever properly agree which nationality\u00a0is going to\u00a0be the chairman, I’ll eat my hat.\u00a0 If an atom ever gets split, I’ll eat my whole outfit which, sitting watching the blizzard outside, is pretty substantial.<\/p>\n

Besides, let’s assume a nuclear reactor does get built in one of the Gulf States.\u00a0 Is\u00a0it going to be run along the same lines as the region’s oil and gas facilities, the\u00a0characteristics of which are corruption, non-accountability, cronyism, political interference, and terrible safety records?\u00a0 Let’s just say that if I will find myself a few years down the track\u00a0being reminded of\u00a0this post and subsequently munching my way through my North Face down jacket, I’ll at least be glad that I am doing so from the\u00a0very remote location of Sakhalin Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gulf Arab leaders are considering a joint civilian nuclear programme, a move that could heighten proliferation concerns in the oil-rich region. reports the Financial Times. The decision to order a study, announced at the end of a two-day summit in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}