Iran seeks nuclear tech, not nukes: President

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the Islamic Republic is after developing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and does not seek nuclear weapons.

“The Islamic Republic has never been after nuclear weapons, in no point in time has it been [after atomic weapons],” said President Rouhani in a meeting with religious scholars and seminary students in the southern Iranian province of Khuzestan on Tuesday.

“All those [countries] that sought [nuclear] bombs did it secretly, and achieved it secretly,” the Iranian president said, adding that Iran would not be a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and would not allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear sites if it intended to develop nuclear bombs.

However, he said, the powerful Iranophobic propaganda by the West managed to present a false image of Iran.

President Rouhani said his administration has been seeking to counter Iranophobia by asserting to the world that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is after nuclear technology but not [nuclear] bombs.”

“This was the foundation for our negotiations with the P5+1 and the West and the world’s big powers,” he said.

The US and some of its allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian purposes in its nuclear energy program.

Iran has strongly rejected the accusation, saying that as a signatory to the NPT and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Furthermore, numerous inspections by the IAEA from Iranian nuclear energy sites has never found any evidence that Iran’s nuclear energy program has non-civilian aspects.