Iraqi minister of electricy Karim Wahid invited France Sunday to resume its aid to Iraq to build a nuclear power plant, three decades after a Paris constructed reactor near Baghdad was bombed by Israeli warplanes. Enlisting France's help comes amid Iraq's struggle to fund its way to 24-hour power coverage. "We have had very good relationships with French companies," the minister told AFP in an interview. "I am willing to enter into contacts with the French nuclear agency and to start to build a nuclear power plant, because the future is nuclear," he said. "This is my perspective."
Under former dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq sealed a 1976 deal with France to build the Osirak nuclear reactor, where construction started in 1979. But in June 1981, during the Iran-Iraq war, Israel sent warplanes to bomb the unfinished reactor south of the Iraqi capital, charging that Saddam's aim was to build nuclear weapons.
Then French premier Jacques Chirac cultivated a special relationship with Iraq during the 1970s. As French president two decades later, he opposed the US-led invasion which toppled Saddam over alleged weapons of mass destruction.
"France has not shown up yet (in post-Saddam Iraq). They will come hopefully," said Wahid, adding that France, whose President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Baghdad on February 10, had "been a good friend to Iraq."