US energy secretary Rick Perry has allowed six secret authorizations by entities to provide Saudi Arabia with nuclear power technology and assistance, according to a document’s copy seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
According to Reuters news reports, United States President Donald Trump’s administration has pursued an agreement over sharing American nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia, aiming at building two nuclear power station in the country.
For this wider deal, several countries are running in the competition which includes Russia, South Korea and the United States, and the winner will likely to be announced by Saudi Arabia later 2019.
Perry’s approval of the deal, also known as Part 810 authorization, will give an allowance to the companies to do preliminary operations over nuclear power plants ahead of reaching any deal, but there will be no involvement of ship equipment into a plant.
In the document, the department of energy’s national nuclear security administration (NNSA) stated the entities had called on American administration to keep the approval secret.
The NNSA said, “In this case, each of the companies which received a specific authorization for (Saudi Arabia) have provided us written request that their authorization be withheld from public release.”
Several US lawmakers have voiced concerns that sharing nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia could generate a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
During a congressional hearing, Democrat Brad Sherman has on Wednesday called on secretary of state Mike Pompeo to announce the names of the companies that are provided with the Trump’s administration approval.
Sherman also said the administration has avoided the US Congress over sharing nuclear power with Saudi.
Pompeo said the administration was looking at to ensure if there would be any proliferation risks while sharing nuclear power.
Moreover, the investigative arm of Congress and government accountability office had accepted Senator Marco Rubio’s request, and Democrat Bob Menedez was to investigate Trump’s administration’ discussions over a nuclear deal with Saudi, according to GAO.