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Iran urges IAEA to look for nukes in EU

Iran Materials 10 March 2011 03:29 (UTC +04:00)

Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called on the body to investigate the deployment of US nuclear weapons in Europe, Press TV reported.

"In a letter to the IAEA director general [Yukiya Amano], I reminded the US violations in deploying nuclear weapons in Europe, which clearly violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and called for a report in this regard," Ali Asghar Soltanieh told IRNA on Wednesday.

"According to the NPT, countries which do not have nuclear weapons, such as Germany and Italy, are obliged to refrain from accepting any material or technologies related to nuclear weapons," Soltanieh added.

The Iranian official said all the signatories to the NPT are obligated to report the existence of nuclear material to the IAEA, and the agency should inspect them.

This is while hundreds of nuclear weapons on Europe's soil, and in countries which are all members of the NPT and have declared themselves non-nuclear-weapon states, have not been inspected by the agency, Soltanieh added.

"This is an obvious violation of the NPT and should be addressed as soon as possible, and the agency should inspect the [storage] place of these weapons and present a complete technical report," Soltanieh concluded.

The US and its Western allies accuse Iran of developing a military nuclear program. In June 2009, the UN Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran's financial and military sectors.

Iranian officials have repeatedly refuted the charges, arguing that as a signatory to the NPT and a member of the IAEA, Tehran has the right to use peaceful nuclear technology.

All reports the IAEA has so far issued on Tehran's nuclear activities verify that there has been no diversion in the country's civilian nuclear program.

On Monday, Yukiya Amano confirmed that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not after a nuclear arms program.

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