Baghdad - A group of Iraqi lawmakers are determined to press
forward with their demands for reparations for a 1981 Israeli attack
on an Iraqi nuclear reactor, Baghdad's daily al-Sabbah reported
Thursday.
Mohammed Naji Mohammed, a member of parliament with the United
Iraqi Alliance coalition, is leading a campaign for a parliamentary
resolution obliging the Iraqi foreign ministry and courts to seek
billions of dollars in reparations for an Israeli air strike on the
Osiraq nuclear reactor.
'We will intensify the campaign in the coming period to prevent
the Foreign Ministry from delaying attempts to seek compensation for
the attack in accordance with existing international resolutions,'
Naji told al-Sabbah.
UN Security Council Resolution 487, passed in the wake of the
attack, 'strongly condemns' Israel's air strike against Iraq's Osiraq
nuclear reactor in June 1981, and 'considers that Iraq is entitled to
appropriate redress for the destruction it has suffered,
responsibility for which has been acknowledged by Israel.'
Israeli officials at the time said they were concerned that the
reactor could eventually be used to produce nuclear weapons for the
regime led at the time by Saddam Hussein.
The Security Council, however, noted at the time that the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had testified that its
safeguards had been 'satisfactorily applied' in Iraq.
Rather, the Security Council said, the Osiraq attack constituted
'a serious threat to the entire safeguards regime' of the IAEA.
Subsequent UN Security Council resolutions 'deplored' Iraq's
noncompliance with the IAEA inspections regime, which the Security
Council in 2002 called a 'threat ... to international peace and
security.'
Naji's statements appeared as the outgoing head of the IAEA,
Mohamed ElBaradei, lashed out at Israel for its lack of cooperation
in uncovering the truth about an alleged nuclear reactor in Syria.
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