Iran 'will maintain NPT membership'

Iran says it will maintain membership in the Non-Proliferation Treaty adding that most of its cooperation with the IAEA has been over and above its obligations, Press TV reported.

"Talks of Iran's withdrawal from NPT are not on the agenda at the present time; we are not obliged to go beyond our basic obligations to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as long as it does not protect our rights," said Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast on Thursday.

The remarks follow the IAEA's reaction to the decision of Iran's government concerning construction of 10 more nuclear enrichment facilities in the country.

"Iran has not yet informed the Agency directly of its decision. The Agency will be seeking clarification from Iran on its announcement," the IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tasked Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (AEO) during a Sunday cabinet meeting with building new nuclear sites after the UN nuclear watchdog passed a resolution demanding that Iran halt construction of its Fordo enrichment plant.

The draft, backed by the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China, was presented at the year-end meeting of IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors.

"President Ahmadinejad's remarks about the new nuclear facilities have just been announced, obviously this will be made known officially to the International Atomic Energy Agency," Mehmanparast added.

"We don't intend to cut our relationship or cooperation with the Agency. We are set to build the new enrichment facilities under the supervision of the IAEA as we believe it is part of our rights," he noted.

Iran says it has always informed the Agency of all its nuclear endeavors well before the deadlines. "What we have done in fact is that we have informed [the Agency] much sooner than we were obliged [to]," Iran's envoy to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh told Press TV on Tuesday.

According to the IAEA safeguards agreement, Tehran is only obliged to inform the IAEA of the existence of enrichment plants six months before the facility becomes operational.

The nuclear sites under discussion are expected to be as large as Iran's enrichment facility in the central city of Natanz.