Egypt claimed it turned down offers of nuclear expertise and material following the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to a US diplomatic cable recently posted on the whistle blower site Wikileaks. The cable, dated May 2009, includes briefings on a bilateral meeting held between US Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance and Implementation Rose Gottemoeller and Egypt's ambassador Maged Abdel Aziz, on the margins of the Preparatory Committee for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [NPT] in New York. "Finally, in an apparent attempt to portray Egypt as a responsible member of the international community, Abdel Aziz claimed that Egypt had been offered nuclear scientists, materials and even weapons following the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Egypt had refused all such offers," reads the cable. When Gottemoeller asked Abdel Aziz how he knew this to be true, Abdel Aziz replied that he was in Moscow at that time and had direct personal knowledge, according to the cable. At the same meeting, the Egyptian ambassador to the United Nations said Egypt was unwilling to wait "fifty more years" before the 1995 resolution on a nuclear-free Middle East was implemented, according to the leaked diplomatic document. Abdel Aziz voiced the usual concerns of Egypt regarding Iranian attempts to acquire nuclear arms, contending "a new approach" needed to be developed so the Iranian question does not hinder progress on implementing the resolution. Like many Arab countries, Egypt has consistently expressed unease with Iranian aspirations to develop its nuclear capacity and to establish itself as a dominant force in the region. While Egyptians have expressed their opposition to such attempts by Iran, they insist that Israel too should be forced to give up its atomic arsenal. Pressured by the nuclear hype in the region, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced the resumption of a decades-old national nuclear program in 2007, maintaining that the project is only for the peaceful end of generating electricity. In a speech on Sunday, Mubarak affirmed that a bid for Egypt's first nuclear station will be held within weeks.
