Establishing Saudi Nuclear Energy Holding Company Economic project or political message?
2022-03-14330 view
On March 11, 2022, Saudi Arabia announced the establishment of the "Holding Company for Nuclear Projects", declaring that its goal is to peacefully participate in energy diversification and expansion of desalinated water production as well as thermal applications.
The establishment of the Company comes within the framework of Saudi Arabia’s endeavours to complete the national project for atomic energy. The project started with founding King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, and calling for bids from a number of foreign companies, most notably French ones and others from South Korea, the United States, Russia and China. Such a geopolitical diversity reflects; Saudi Arabia to give priority to its interests if conflict of interests occurs with one of the external powers, so that it could rely on other forces that serve the Kingdom's interests.
The newly established company could have the capability able to own and build nuclear projects inside and outside the territory of the Kingdom, expand its capabilities to meet future energy demand throughout the region in addition to diversifying its abilities to provide water and cooling services for Saudi dwellings.
Since Saudi Arabia does not have nuclear fuel, it is expected to simultaneously start working on having a project to enrich uranium, and at the same purchase nuclear fuel from abroad through concluded contracts.
More than once, Saudi Arabia has affirmed its right to possess a nuclear weapon if Iran does. In this context, Saudi ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Prince Abdullah bin Khalid bin Sultan, who officially announced the establishment of the Nuclear Energy Holding Company, expressed his country's concerns about the security level of Iran's Bushehr reactor. Abdullah stressed that Iran exercise a misleading and procrastinating policy regarding its nuclear program. This reflects Saudi Arabia's dissatisfaction with the course of negotiations regarding the nuclear agreement between Western powers and Iran.
The United States believes that one of the goals of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is not to give other countries a pretext to possess such a weapon, that would turn the region into a dangerous nuclear confrontation arena that affects the security and safety of the world.
It is believed that Saudi Arabia will not take, neither in the short term or even the medium one, any practical additional steps towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. However, the Saudi’s announcement of the establishment of this company, and linking its goals to “peaceful purposes,” comes as a kind of political affirmation of the need to take Saudi Arabia’s concerns seriously in any possible nuclear agreement with Iran. It should be noted, however, that granting Iran the right to possess the nuclear weapon -even when it is without teeth- will urge other regional countries to have their own nuclear programs, even for just peaceful purposes initially.
