Alrite guys…it is Egypt turn now..First Pakistan then Iran and now Egypt has to answer some tough questions…
UN probes undeclared Egypt nuclear work
VIENNA, Wednesday
The UN nuclear watchdog is investigating undeclared nuclear work in Egypt that could have been linked to an atomic weapons programme, Western diplomats said on Wednesday.
However, the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the experiments with uranium were not proof of a nuclear weapons programme and that Egypt’s failure to report them may have been little more than a minor technical failure.
“Egypt’s failure to report some nuclear activities is being looked at by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), along with several other countries,” a diplomat told Reuters.
They said that Egypt experimented with producing uranium metal and processing uranium for enrichment, a process of purifying uranium for use as fuel for power plants or weapons.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told reporters Egypt was committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and said there was no truth behind media reports Cairo had hidden a nuclear programme.
“In the framework of Egypt’s complete commitment to the articles on nuclear non-proliferation, there is an exchange of visits and discussions between Egypt and the agency,” Aboul Gheit said.
The diplomats added that the experiments bore little resemblance to the work of Iran, which hid a massive uranium enrichment programme from the IAEA for nearly two decades and which Washington believes is trying to get an atomic bomb.
They could prove embarrassing for the IAEA’s Egyptian director general, Mohamed ElBaradei.
ElBaradei is running for a third term as the IAEA’s chief, despite fierce opposition from the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, which blames him for the humiliating pre-election revelation that the U.S. military had failed to secure 380 tonnes of high explosives after invading Iraq.
In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, ElBaradei neither confirmed nor denied the information about Egypt, though he insisted that Egypt would get the same rigorous treatment as any other signatory of the NPT.
“I’m sitting here as a director general and not as an Egyptian, and we will continue to apply the same standards of transparency and professionalism. We are not going to hide any piece of information,” he said.
However, he added that agency has “seen in a number of places technical failures to report” nuclear activities to the IAEA and warned that any proliferation concerns would be brought to the attention to the IAEA Board of Governors immediately.