MANAMA (AFP) – Arab and international experts at a meeting in Manama on Sunday proposed the establishment of a regional atomic energy body to include Iran and Iraq alongside the Arab monarchies of the Gulf.

The meeting on nuclear technologies, in a final statement, said the new body could be fashioned along the lines of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The delegates also proposed a security accord for nuclear installations in the Gulf region, warning any separate atomic initiative could pose “a danger or even potential catastrophe for the inhabitants and environment of the region.”

The six Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, wary of Iran’s controversial nuclear ambitions, decided at the end of 2006 to develop a joint civilian atomic programme.

But in December 2009, the United Arab Emirates awarded a South Korean firm a 20.4-billion-dollar contract to build four nuclear energy plants, due to go online in 2017.

Representatives of Iran and Iraq took part in the Manama meeting of experts organised by a Bahraini NGO.