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TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that Iran was ready to share its nuclear technology with Islamic countries.
“The Islamic Republic never seeks weapons of mass destruction and
with respect to the needs of Islamic countries, we are ready to transfer nuclear know-how to these countries,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. The remarks were made during a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly summit in New York, IRNA said. Turkey plans to generate about five percent of its energy demand by 2012 from nuclear power through construction of reactors with 4,500 megawatt (MW) capacity.
The comments were likely to heighten western concerns about Tehran’s nuclear programme just ahead of a key meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) this month, which could refer Iran to the UN Security Council for punitive action.
Reacting to the comments, a British Foreign Office spokesman said it was not clear what Ahamdinejad’s offer to Islamic countries involved. “In any case, this is not the pressing question,” he said. “The issue is the lack of confidence in Iran’s nuclear programme as a result of two decades of non-disclosures and concealment.” Washington and its allies claim that Iran has failed to provide full and timely information about its nuclear programme, and are alarmed. reuters