“Such pressures, which seek to prevent Jordan from possessing new energy resources, represent a threat to the country’s security and should be rejected,” the group’s official spokesman Jamil Abu Bakr said in a statement.
“Such Israeli attempts, which enjoy US backing, are designed to perpetuate Israel’s domination of the region through keeping our countries weak and poor,” he added.
Abu Bakr was reacting to reports from Washington that the United States, due to pressures from Israel, was opposing Jordan’s exploitation of its own uranium resources to run a civilian nuclear reactor for generating part of its energy needs.
Over the past year, Jordan has been involved in talks with the United States to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement, but Washington refused to allow its close ally to produce its own nuclear fuel.
Jordan has discovered promising uranium ores inside the country, tentatively estimated at 65,000 tons, which it hopes to mine commercially for domestic use and for export.
The Jordanian government has signed nuclear cooperation agreements over the past couple of years with at least nine countries, including France, China and Russia, in a bid to obtain nuclear know-how to build a nuclear reactor, 25 km south east of the Red Sea port of Aqaba.
In a recent interview with Wall Street Journal, King Abdallah complained that Israel, which is widely believed to have built nuclear weapons, was putting “underhand” pressure on countries not to sell nuclear technology to Jordan.
Also on Saturday, Jordanian columnists criticized the United States for “betraying” its close ally on this issue, and cast doubt on the sincerity of US efforts that seek to bring about a peaceful settlement for Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
