Riyadh: French President Nicolas Sarkozy has offered Saudi Arabia help in developing peaceful nuclear energy at the start of a Gulf tour he hopes will secure billions of dollars in contracts for French firms.
After Saudi Arabia, where he met King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, Sarkozy was to go to Qatar and then on to the United Arab Emirates where he will sign a nuclear cooperation agreement on Tuesday.
"On technology transfer, the President raised the civilian nuclear issue" with King Abdullah, a source in the French delegation said. Sarkozy said a nuclear team was ready to visit Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks "to study possibilities".
Sarkozy, who has already signed civilian nuclear deals with Arab oil producers Algeria and Libya, has made no secret of his view that all states have a right to atomic power.
"I have often said that the Muslim world does not have less right than the rest of the world to use civilian nuclear power to meet its energy needs in full conformity with the obligations that derive from international law," he told Al Hayat newspaper, a London-based Arabic-language daily.
France's Total confirmed on Monday it would develop two third-generation nuclear reactors in the UAE with Suez as its main partner and state-owned nuclear reactor maker Areva.
The Gulf Cooperation Council -- a loose economic and political alliance of six Gulf Arab states including the UAE -- said last year it was studying a joint nuclear energy programme and has been in touch with the UN atomic energy watchdog about cooperating over such a scheme.
Sarkozy said France would be an honest friend to Saudi Arabia.
"France wants to be a friend of Saudi Arabia ... who does not seek to give lessons, but says the truth, a friend who asks for nothing, but is there when needed," Sarkozy told the Saudi parliament which is an appointed body.
