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Iran is under scrutiny and sanctions over their own nuclear program, yet on Saturday an Iranian nuclear official offered to export “nuclear services” to what he termed “friendly countries.” The Iranian Fars News Agency reported that Director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereidoon Abbasi Davani told reporters that the Islamic Republic can export nuclear parts, echoing similar comments he made last summer.
“At present we are capable of exporting nuclear services to the friendly countries in Africa which own considerable uranium resources,” Fars quoted Abbasi Davani as saying on Saturday in Bushehr, the city home to Iran’s first nuclear power plant.
Iran’s nuclear program is under observation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). While Iran is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which prohibits them from building nuclear weapons, the IAEA has expressed concerns about possible military dimensions to their program.
Back in June, Abbasi Davani had encouraged nations with natural uranium stockpiles to instead sell the enriched uranium—which can be used as nuclear fuel—instead of the raw resource. He also offered to help them by exporting enrichment facilities.
At the time he said that Iran did not have plans to export its own enriched uranium, but that “if a country party to the NPT needs enriched material, we are ready to provide it, through IAEA and with IAEA verification.”
The report noted that Abbasi Davani said such exports would be confirmed by the IAEA as being for peaceful use. Iran also claims its own program is peaceful, although the West has long suspected Tehran is actually interested in nuclear weapons.
(By Staff, www.themideastupdate.com, January 8, 2012)