Jordan signs nuclear deal with Britain

Britain signed a preliminary nuclear cooperation deal with Jordan on Sunday, as the desert kingdom scrambles to meet growing energy needs and find alternative sources of power to desalinate water.

"The memorandum will pave the way for signing a cooperation agreement between the two countries later this year," Khaled Tukan, head of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission told reporters.

He said Britain and Jordan agreed to cooperate on "promoting the establishment of a reliable source of nuclear fuel for future civilian light water nuclear reactors" in the kingdom, which imports around 95 percent of its energy needs.

"The two sides also agreed to work together to develop human resources and nuclear safety, as well as generate power and desalinating water through nuclear energy," he added.

In addition to its lack of energy, the kingdom of some six million people is one of the most water-deprived countries in the world, with a deficit of more than 500 million cubic metres (more than 17 billion cubic feet) a year.

The British embassy's deputy head of mission, John Casson, signed the memorandum with Tukan on behalf of the visiting chairwoman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, Lady Barbara Thomas Judge.

"We have been talking (with Jordan) about the common problems of building a new civil nuclear power plant," Judge told reporters.

"The Jordanians and the United Kingdom are embarking on this first step, first step for us in a long time, first step for you, to become self-sufficient."

She said Britain wants "very much to help the Jordanian government choose the right way to go about mining uranium".

Amman has said it plans to extract around 130,000 tonnes of uranium from the country's 1.2 billion tonnes of phosphate reserves and build a nuclear reactor, with the help of a global partner.

It has reached similar agreements with Canada, France and the United States, aiming to bring its first nuclear plant into operation by 2015 under a multi-billion dollar programme.

Jordan, which hopes nuclear power will meet 30 percent of its energy needs by 2030, is the latest Sunni Arab country to announce nuclear plans in the face of Shiite Iran's contested atomic drive, following in the footsteps of Egypt and the Gulf Arab states.

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