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= Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East =

History
The need for a large-scale scientific project to bring the Middle-East back into the scientific community as well as promote peace and foster international collaboration has been recognised for almost 40 years. In his speech at the 1979 Nobel Prize banquet, Pakistani physicist Mohammad Abdus Salam stated that we should “strive to provide equal opportunities to all so that they can engage in the creation of Physics and science for the benefit of all mankind.”

In his paper presented at the Symposium on the “Future Outlook of the Arabian Gulf University,” on 11 May 1983, in Bahrain, titled The Gulf University and Science in the Arab-Islamic Commonwealth, Abdus Salam proposed the founding of a Super Gulf University and an international laboratory in material sciences in Bahrain. Such a laboratory was proposed for the University of Jeddah, to emphasise science and technology transfer in the material sciences, including a laboratory with a synchrotron radiation light source. Ultimately, the proposal did not come through, possibly because it had the sponsorship of a single university rather than a consortium of universities.

In 1997, Herman Winick and Gustav-Adolf Voss suggested building a light source in the Middle-East using components from the soon-to-be decommissioned BESSY I facility in Berlin, during two seminars organized in 1997 in Italy and in 1998 in Sweden by Tord Ekelof with the CERN-based Middle East Scientific Co-operation (MESC) group headed by Sergio Fubini. Winick was credited with the idea of moving the machine to the Middle-East during discussions about the future of the machine. He explained“(his) main motivation is to help create a project in which people can work constructively and collectively.”

This proposal was adopted and pursued by MESC. The German government agreed to donate the necessary equipment at the request of Sargio Funini and Herwig Schopper. Believing that the only chance of realizing such a project was following the example of CERN, the plan was brought to the attention of Federico Mayor, then Director-General of UNESCO, who organized the Consultative Meeting on a Middle East Synchrotron Light Facility, at UNESCO headquarters in Paris in June 1999. The meeting resulted in the launching of the project and the establishment of an International Interim Council under the chairmanship of Herwig Schoper.

In May 2002, the Executive Board and Director General of UNESCO unanimously approved the establishment of the Centre under UNESCO auspices, through resolution 31C/Resolution 19.

The groundbreaking ceremony for SESAME took place at Al-Balqa’ Applied University in Jordan, on January 6, 2003. SESAME used offices at the UNESCO Office in Amman until the completion of the building in 2008.

In April 2004, the centre formally came into existence when the required number of Members had informed UNESCO of their decision to join. and a permanent Council was established. The founding members were Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, and Turkey. The current Members are Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, and Turkey. The Observers are Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

SESAME was officially opened on 16 May 2017 by King Abdullah II of Jordan.

Early Criticism
The German and French Ambassadors to UNESCO complained that Matsuura had not followed UNESCO protocol while making this decision. Schopper explained the difficult circumstances the project was facing and they withdrew their complaints. Matsuura did not need formal approval to provide the required funds because the Japanese government had given him a budget to be used at his discretion when he was appointed Director General.

SESAME faced a further setback when the German government was asked to withdraw the authorization of export of BESSY I after public criticism was raised because some scientists claimed that it is possible to produce nuclear materials for atomic bombs with SESAME. Schopper was invited to a televised discussion with Professor Dr. Reinhard Brandt, one of the scientists who made the critical claims. The objections were eventually resolved, as Schopper explained that although some plutonium could have been produced, it would not have been a sufficient amount to develop a bomb. The BESSY I components were eventually shipped from Berlin to Hamburg and then to the Zarqa Free Zone in Jordan, where where they were held by the Jordanian government until SESAME was formally founded and the building was ready to accept the components.

Name
The acronym SESAME was selected to evoke memories of region’s culture, referring to the famous line “open sesame” from the tales of One Thousand and One Nights. Winick also explained that the acronym is appropriate because one of the lab’s objectives is to bring people together, and “Sesame Street is where young people are taught to cooperate and respect each other.”

Location
Before UNESCO could formally approve SESAME, the issue of finding a host country and a site had to be resolved. The Interim Council agreed on a set of criteria which had to be satisfied by the host country and site. The lab had to be accessible, geographically and politically, to scientists from all over the world, and the host state should be strongly committed to the project, and should provide the land on which the lab would be based for free, as well as provide the building itself and the technical infrastructure (roads, water, electricity).

Seven Members (Armenia, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Oman, Palestine and Turkey) proposed 12 sites. UNESCO Assistant Directr General for Natural Sciences, Maurizio Iaccarino, and Schopper visited Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Palestine in September 1999. The Armenian, Iranian and Turkish proposals were explored at Interim Council Meetings.

Although Egypt expressed strong interest in the project, a long procedure which involved going through many authorities was necessary before the project could be presented to the Prime Minister, and the proposal was ultimately deemed unfit. The Palestinian National Authority, although interested in the project, did not have the financial capacity to meet the Interim Council’s criteria. For political reasons, Israel could not provide a site accessible to all scientists. Additionally, Israel was already heavily involved in the ESFR laboratory at Grenoble, and were contractually bound to provide considerable funds. Furthermore, biologists did not see how they would benefit from SESAME since they already had access to other laboratories across the world. Armenia offered to host SESAME in their building Synchrotron Laboratory at Erevan since their accelerator was outdated. Their proposal was strengthened with the backing of wealthy Iraqi-born Armenian-American businessman Kevork Hovnanian. However, it was later realized that several alterations to the building were necessary to make it a viable site for SESAME. Iran, considered a rogue state at the time, though interested in the project, could not guarantee access to scientists from all countries, and so the proposal was ultimately unsuccessful.

Approving Jordan
In Jordan, Adnan Badran, Deputy Director of UNESCO from 1992 to 1998, organised a meeting with representatives from universities and other organisations. No government members could be met, and no commitment was obtained. In a last ditch effort to save the project, Schopper contacted his former student Isa Khubeis, then Vice-President of Al-Balqa Applied University. Khubeis invited Iaccarino and Schopper to dinner along with Khaled Toukan, President of Al-Balqa University, and Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad, who Chairman of the Board of Governors of the University and a close advisor of King Abdullah II. Schopper explained the situation to Prince Ghazi, who arranged a meeting with King Abdullah for the following day. King Abdullah formally committed Jordan to the project during the meeting in a signed letter addressed to the Director General of UNESCO.

After long discussions and a series of votes, Jordan was formally approved to be the host of the Centre at the third meeting of the SESAME Interim Council in June 2000. Egypt and Iran withdrew their proposals before the final round of voting. The decision was ratified by 9 votes in favour and 1 abstention. Jordan was seen as an appropriate location for the project because it was the only country at the time to have maintained diplomatic relations with all other founding members:  Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, and Turkey.

Funding
As well as the drawn-out process in deciding which country should host SESAME, the project came across several other difficulties on its path to completion. Possibly the largest issue was its funding. Because the major components of the laboratory from the decommissioned BESSY I experiment, originally valued at $60 million, were being donated by the German government, funding on that front was not an issue. However, the German government stipulated that the cost of dismantling, including documentation, packing and transport, had to be provided by SESAME. The cost was an estimated $600,000, and had to be guaranteed before the end of 1999 because the BESSY building had been promised to the Max Planck Society. Schopper had been informed of this condition only a few hours before the Interim Council meeting, and asking for voluntary contributions would have been ineffective because most delegates at the meeting would not have had the authority to make financial decision. After a discussion between the Interim Council, the United States State Department, Sweden and Russia agreed to provide $200,000. Schopper saw only one possible option to save the project. He asked UNESCO DG Koichiro Matsuura to arrange an emergency meeting. They had a lunch together, and Schopper asked Matsuura to fund the missing $400,000 immediately. Matsuura agreed to the request and the Interim Council Members were informed after the lunch.

Because the BESSY components were used only as an injector system, the construction of a new main ring was still needed for SESAME. The estimated cost of the ring was $10 million so additional sources of funding were required.

On 23 July 2001 a formal proposal supported by the German and French Ministers of Research, and later the Commissioner for Research Philippe Busquin, was submitted to European Commissioner Chris Patten. In October 2001 chef de cabinet of Commissioner Patten, Anthony Cary, informed Schopper that an independent evaluation by a panel of international experts was needed. The Techno-Economic Feasibility Study was under the guidance of Professor Guy Le Lay of the University of Marseille. The report concluded that the project was promising and would “effectively stimulate scientific activity and cooperation in the Middle East.” However, in August 2003, Commissioner Patten stated that “the Commission is not in a position at this stage to provide Community funding to SESAME.” In a subsequent meeting arranged between the Jordanian government, SESAME representatives and the EU Commission, the main of contention was the project’s energy level. It was claimed that a competitive facility needed a higher energy level. A compromise was reached that the machine should start at 2 GeV, with 2.5 GeV available at a later stage. This would have increased the cost of the ring by another $2 million.

The issue was eventually resolved through negotiations started by Director General Rolf Heuer between CERN and the Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Carlos Moedas. About $5 million were approved for CERN to be used for the construction of the magnets of the SESAME main ring.