Iraq sells its uranium to Canadian company

Tue Feb 17, 2:11 pm ET
Iraq sells its uranium to Canadian company AFP/File – Children walk by the walls of the Tuwaitha nuclear plant compound in Iraq in 2003. Iraq has sold its …

BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraq has sold its 550 tonnes of uranium concentrate or "yellow cake", built up by former dictator Saddam Hussein, to Cameco of Canada for 90 million dollars, the government said on Tuesday.

"The cabinet has today approved this sale because we have signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and we no longer need this material accumulated by the former regime," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told AFP.

Iraq launched a tender offer last year and Sakatoon-based uranium producer Cameco Corp won the contract, he said.

The last remains of Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions were secretly transported to a Canadian port in July 2008 with US support.

Iraq still has to clean up the last radioactive waste at the former nuclear power station at Tuwaitha south of Baghdad.

Uranium concentrate or yellow cake is partially processed uranium ore.