News

Launch of the Iraq Nuclear Decommissioning Project website

Welcome to this new website for the project to decommission the Iraq former nuclear complex. Both IAEA and the Government of Iraq view this overall decommissioning programme with the greatest importance, whilst recognising that it presents many technical and organisational challenges. Many of the nuclear sites and facilities, arising both from the legitimate Iraqi nuclear research programme and from its former covert activities, have been extensively damaged through warfare, thereby presenting unique decommissioning difficulties.

This website aims to support the ongoing work on this project by providing information to external stakeholders, including potential technical collaborators, supporting governments, other international organisations and the media.

Discussions with the Iraq Minister of Environment

The Iraq Minister of Environment, Ms Narmin Barzinjy, and her Deputy Minister Mr Kamal Latif, have been invited to Vienna for discussions regarding regulatory oversight of the decommissioning project. The Ministry contains the Radiation Protection Center, one of two regulatory bodies within Iraq addressing the control of radioactive sources and radiation exposure. Under proposals developed within the project there will be a new nuclear law and a single new regulatory body created to have oversight of all radiation sources within Iraq. The transition to these new arrangements is clearly of interest to the Ministry, and arrangements for a planned visit are being revised following a late deferral of a previously-planned meeting.

Preparation for the first ‘hands on’ dismantling work

The programme is building up towards the first ‘hands on’ demolition activity which will begin in the summer. In preparation for this there will be a hectic series of meetings and training activities taking place in April, May and early June. In April the IAEA is hosting a meeting to review the project plans for the dismantling of the LAMA facility on the Al-Tuwaitha site. Experts from Sandia Laboratories, in the US, together with IAEA experts, will review the Iraqi proposals for this first relatively low activity learning project. The following week there will be a review of the wider decommissioning plans for the next ‘hands on’ activities, including the management of scrap materials

at Tuwaitha and the assessment of options for making safe the liquid waste tanks on this site.

Training activity will then move to the Ukraine, where experience will be gained working in the contaminated areas surrounding Chernobyl. This will provide Iraqi personnel with the opportunity to undertake active measurements and assessments in a controlled environment. This experience will then be brought to bear on the first active project work in Iraq.

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