Iran could withdraw from the global treaty banning the development of nuclear weapons if its nuclear installations were attacked, a senior Iranian diplomat said Friday in Vienna, dpa reported.
The remarks by Tehran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, were apparently referring to the possibility of an Israeli airstrike, an option that has been mooted as fears grow about an Iranian nuclear weapons programme.
Soltanieh said that "there is a possibility that the parliament forces the government to stop the (IAEA) inspections or, even in the worse scenario, withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)."
The NPT forbids countries that do not have nuclear weapons from developing them. Western countries are concerned that withdrawal from the treaty would signal that the Islamic country is prepared to start building nuclear weapons.
Information collected by the Vienna-based IAEA suggest that Iran may have worked on weapons research and development, but not on actually building nuclear arms.
Soltanieh also said that an attack would likely force his country to install uranium enrichment plants "in more secure places."
Iran says its two existing enrichment sites make fuel for civilian nuclear reactors, but Western countries want the facilities to stop operations, as the material produced there could theoretically be processed further into nuclear weapons.
Tehran has previously announced that it plans to build further enrichment plants, but has not informed the IAEA where these would be located.