CAIRO - Egypt will begin building nuclear power plants soon, a cabinet minister was quoted as saying Sunday, three days after President Hosni Mubarak called on his government to pursue nuclear energy.

Minister of Electricity and Energy Hassan Younes told the state-owned Al Ahram newspaper that within 10 years of the project's launch, Egypt would have an operational nuclear power plant.

Younes said the country's Supreme Council of Energy is due to meet Sunday to endorse the plans.

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Egypt plans to build a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant at El-Dabaa, on the Mediterranean coast, Younes said. Its construction cost is estimated at US$1.5 billion and the government will seek foreign investment for the project, the electricity minister added.

The independent Al Masry Al Youm newspaper reported Sunday that the government plans to build three nuclear power stations with a total capacity of 1,800 megwatts. It quoted unnamed officials as saying the construction of the three plants would be completed by 2020.

Egypt has signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and has long called for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.

But Cairo has largely remained on the sidelines of international criticism of Iran's nuclear program, which the U.S. has said aims to produce nuclear weapons, although Tehran claims its goal is to generate electricity.

President called to renew atom program
On Thursday, Mubarak called for Egypt to revive plans for a nuclear program that were publicly shelved in the aftermath of the 1986 accident at the Soviet nuclear plant in Chernobyl.

"We must increase our exploitation of new energy sources, including the peaceful uses of nuclear energy," Mubarak told a conference of his ruling National Democratic Party.

In recent years, there have been reports that Egypt had sold the site to entrepreneurs to develop as a tourist resort. But since April 2005, there have been conflicting reports of negotiations between Egypt and Russia to build a nuclear power station.

Egyptian nuclear experts hailed the government's move.

"This is a landmark decision in Egypt's history," said Mohammed Abdel Salam, Egypt's top nuclear expert and researcher at the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

"Egypt has all the potential to launch this program," said Ali el-Sa'eidy, a former electricity and power minister.

In February 2005, the International Atomic Energy Agency disclosed that it was investigating Egypt's nuclear activities. It concluded that Egypt had conducted atomic research for as long as four decades, but that the research did not aim to develop nuclear weapons and did not include uranium enrichment.

The UN nuclear watchdog was looking into rumors that Egypt had aimed to develop an independent nuclear fuel cycle at its two research reactors.

On Thursday, U.S. Ambassador Francis J. Ricciardone said the United States is ready to supply technology to Egypt - a strong U.S. ally - if it decides to develop a peaceful nuclear program.

"There is no comparison between Iran and Egypt in this field. Iran has a nuclear weapons program, but using nuclear power for peaceful means is totally different matter," Ricciardone told an Egyptian TV station.