TEHRAN, Iran – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday his country was ready to transfer nuclear technology to neighboring countries, nearly a week after Arab states on the Persian Gulf announced plans to consider a joint nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad told a top Kuwaiti envoy he welcomed the decision by the Islamic republic’s Arab Gulf neighbors to pursue peaceful nuclear technology, state-run television said.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to transfer to regional states its valuable experience and achievements in the field of peaceful nuclear technology as a clean energy source and as a replacement for oil,” state media quoted Ahmadinejad as telling Mohammed Zefollah Shirar, a top adviser to the Kuwaiti emir.
Such a technological transfer would be legal as long as it is between signatory states to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, and as long as the International Atomic Energy Agency that monitors the treaty is informed of the transfer.
Iran is at odds with the United States and its European allies over its nuclear program. The Western powers are seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for its program, which the U.S. and Europe say is aimed at producing nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is solely for the peaceful production of nuclear energy.
In Washington, Edgar Vasquez, a State Department spokesman, said Saturday that Iran’s continued defiance of international nuclear safeguards represents “a serious threat” to maintaining peace and stability in the region.
Unlike Iran, the United States said it had no problem with Gulf Arab states developing nuclear energy capability because they show no interest in using the technology to build atomic weapons.
The Gulf Corporation Council – made up of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman – said last week it was commissioning a study on setting up a nuclear energy program for peaceful purposes, which would abide by international standards and laws.
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