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Iran’s nuclear program: between myth and reality

Zafar Bangash

In recent weeks, propaganda against Iran’s nuclear program has gone hysterical, pushed no doubt by the Zionist warmongers that are prepared to fight to the last American. Amid US-Zionist threats to attack Iran to prevent it from “acquiring” nuclear weapons — using nuclear missiles, no less — war psychosis has gripped much of the Western world and its Arabian clients! It has also now emerged, according to the US television network NBC (February 09), that the Zionist regime is working closely with the terrorist group, the Mujahideen-e Khalq Organization (MKO), in targeting Iranian scientists. This is state sponsored terrorism, something the Zionists and their US paymasters have long indulged in while accusing others of practising it.

Five Iranian scientists have been assassinated since 2007. The most recent victim was Dr. Mostafa Ahmedi Roshan, assassinated on January 11, 2012 while driving to work in Tehran. Israeli-backed MKO terrorists, riding a motorbike, planted a magnet bomb on his car before detonating it, killing the 32-year-old scientist immediately. While US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have denied involvement in these terrorist acts, Iranian officials have said they have proof of US-Zionist collaboration. They obtained this information from US agents captured in Iran last year who revealed the details of US-Zionist terrorist plots.'

One can imagine the uproar if Iran were involved in killing American or Israeli scientists. Last November, the US regime made a scandalous allegation that Iran had recruited a used car salesman working in tandem with Mexican drug cartel members to kill Adel al-Jubayr, the Saudi ambassador in Washington. The allegation was so bizarre that even US officials making it could not say it with a straight face. It was milked for propaganda purposes for a week or so before it disappeared from the headlines.

It is important, however to understand the real nature of Iran’s nuclear program beyond the daily hype dished out by US-Zionists official and lapped up by the corporate media. Iran’s nuclear program was not launched with the success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 whose 33rd anniversary was celebrated last month. It was the US that had told the Shah of Iran as early as 1974 to embark on a nuclear program. The Shah, of course, was an American puppet. When asked why it was alright for the Shah to have a nuclear program but not Islamic Iran, Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State, candidly admitted: “the Shah was our ally; Islamic Iran is our enemy.” For the US, its allies can have nuclear weapons as well as other weapons of mass destruction but those perceived as its enemies will not be permitted to even defend themselves.

Zionist Israel, for instance, has more than 200 nuclear weapons, thanks to the help provided by France and the US, yet no demand is made of Israel to abandon its nuclear weapons. In September 2010, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) governing board passed a resolution demanding Israel sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and open its nuclear facilities to international inspections, both the Israeli delegate Shaul Horev and US representative to the IAEA, Glyn Davies immediately denounced the resolution as unfair and a “threat” to Israel’s security. When countries, notably Egypt and Iran, call for a nuclear free zone in the Muslim East, the US says this threatens Israel’s security. At his first press conference after becoming president, Barack Obama was asked by the veteran White House correspondent, Helen Thomas, if he would name the country in the Middle East that had nuclear weapons. Obama replied that he did not want to speculate.

US-Arabian hypocrisy

Yet that is precisely what Obama has been doing vis-à-vis Iran. He has gone further. Without proof, Obama has made allegations about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program and imposed stiff sanctions as well as threatened military aggression contrary to the UN charter; using such statements as “all options are on the table” he means to say that the US would not rule out a military attack against Tehran. Whether it will succeed in this foolish venture is a different matter but US hypocrisy and bloody-mindedness clearly come through.

There is no shortage of hypocrisy in the region either. On February 10, NBC News reported, based on a story in the London daily, The Times, that Saudi officials have said they will “buy” nuclear weapons if Iran were to acquire them. The bad news for the Saudis is that they would be in clear violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to which they are signatories. This also exposes the fact, yet again, that they are not concerned about Zionist Israel’s 200–500 nuclear bombs that it has had since 1968 yet they cry wolf over Iran’s peaceful nuclear program. The good news, however, is that the Saudis are so incompetent they cannot even ride a donkey without falling off it, much less handling a nuclear bomb. The story also speculated that Pakistan would supply the bomb. While Pakistani officials did not comment on the story directly, its embassy in Riyadh issued a statement quoting the ambassador, Muhammad Naeem Khan, as saying “each Pakistani considers (the) security of Saudi Arabia as his personal matter.” He also said that the Saudi leadership considered Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be one country. The Pakistanis may wish this were true but the fact is the Saudis treat the Pakistanis working in the kingdom with disdain and routinely humiliate them.

Iran’s nuclear program as well as the allegation that it might acquire and then use nuclear weapons against Israel or threaten neighbouring Arabian countries must be viewed in light of empirical evidence. Iran has not attacked any country in the last 200 years. Can anyone name a single country the US has not attacked or threatened to attack in the same period? What about Zionist Israel? It has attacked or threatened to attack each and every one of its neighbours since its illegal creation in 1948. Besides, it occupies not only large swaths of neighbours’ lands but has also usurped the whole of Palestine expelling millions of Palestinians from their homes and villages.

Let us examine Iran’s nuclear conduct. Immediately after the success of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, it cancelled all nuclear agreements with the US. It also expelled Israeli diplomats from Tehran handing over the embassy to the Palestinians. It eliminated American interference in Iran’s internal affairs. This was a big blow to US greed and geo-strategic designs. They had plundered Iran’s resources for decades. During the year of the revolution and immediately after its victory, US officials openly talked about who “lost Iran”. For the Americans, Iran was a piece of real estate that they considered as their own. US crimes against Iran

The Americans, however, did not give up despite suffering a serious “loss”. They resorted to their old trick of undermining the fledgling Islamic State through its embassy in Tehran from where they distributed millions of dollars to their agents. They thought they could repeat the CIA-British engineered coup of 1953 when the Shah was reinstated to power. The revolutionary students, however, put an end to this conspiracy through their daring operation by capturing the “den of spies”, otherwise called the US embassy, on November 4, 1979. The Americans were furious; this was a huge setback for their plans but their mischief making did not end.

They instigated the Iraqi tyrant Saddam Husain to invade the Islamic Republic. He willingly obliged and on September 22, 1980 Iraqi troops entered Iran while it was in the throes of revolutionary upheaval. The US had no diplomatic ties with Iraq at the time but US President Ronald Reagan dispatched Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad to meet Saddam Husain and offered financial as well as intelligence help. More importantly, the US supplied the wherewithal to Iraq to make chemical weapons. The British built a Sarin poison gas factory for Saddam. Other European countries supplied weapons including missiles and planes while the Arabian rulers financed Saddam’s war against the only Islamic state of modern times.

From September 1983 to March 1988, Saddam’s forces used chemical and biological weapons against Iran’s forces but not once did the UN Security Council muster the courage to name him as the guilty party despite overwhelming evidence that the only victims were Iranian soldiers and revolutionary guards. Inspired by Islamic revolutionary spirit, Iran single-handedly withstood this onslaught, resisted the modern-day ahzab and successfully defended the revolution. Saddam’s use of chemical weapons was only brought to light after he invaded and occupied Kuwait in August 1990. He had become a menace by challenging the western crafted Middle Eastern order. It must be borne in mind that while Iran possessed chemical weapons — these had been acquired by the Shah, thanks to his subservience to the US and Israel — the Islamic Republic refused to use them. Imam Khomeini (may Allah’s (swt)mercy be upon him) declared that the use of weapons of mass destruction was prohibited in Islam since they would jeopardise innocent people as well. Further, these were weapons that were so horrible that Muslims could not use them even against their enemies. Viewed against the backdrop of Iran’s scrupulous adherence to Islamic principles, when its leaders say that they are not acquiring nuclear weapons, they must be believed. The Rahbar, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei has said that nuclear weapons are forbidden. Those that accuse Iran of surreptitiously working to acquire them have to provide proof, not merely make scandalous allegations.

History of the NPT

The NPT was opened for signatures on July 1, 1968 (see Text of Treaty, p. 27). It was signed by 62 countries including the US, Soviet Union and Britain, but not by China or France. Until then, these five countries were the only nuclear states. Iran also signed the treaty at the time. The NPT came into existence under the program, “Atoms for Peace”, launched by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1957. After years of negotiations, its articles were finalized in 1968. Following US ratification of the Treaty on March 5, 1970, it formally came into force soon thereafter. China signed the NPT on March 9, 1992 while France followed a few months later on August 3, 1992. Three countries — India, Pakistan and Israel — have never been signatories to the Treaty and have nuclear weapons although Israel neither admits nor denies possessing them. It is widely known that Israel has between 200–500 nuclear weapons. North Korea withdrew from the Treaty in 2003, and it openly became a nuclear state when it exploded a device on October 9, 2006.

At the time of its ratification in 1970, the signing parties agreed that the Treaty would be valid for 25 years. As the Treaty’s term neared expiration, more than 170 countries attended the NPT Review and Extension Conference in New York on May 11, 1995 to consider its future. Months of deliberations had preceded the May 11 conference. Three decisions and one resolution emerged from it. First, the NPT was extended for an indefinite period and without conditions. Second, Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament were worked out to guide the parties to the treaty in the next phase of its implementation. Third, an enhanced review process was established for future review conferences. Finally, a resolution endorsed the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Muslim East. This was included at the insistence of Arabian states as part of the conference procedures. They made their agreement for the indefinite extension of the NPT contingent on the Muslim East being made a nuclear-free zone.

From its inception the NPT has been western driven, yet western countries are the major violators of its articles. The Treaty comprises a preamble that sets out the general principles and its 11 articles outline the rights, responsibilities and obligations of the signing parties. The preamble clearly recognizes “the devastation that would be visited upon all mankind by a nuclear war and the consequent need to make every effort to avert the danger of such a war and to take measures to safeguard the security of peoples.” It further states: “the proliferation of nuclear weapons would seriously enhance the danger of nuclear war.”

While stressing the need to prevent proliferation, the NPT affirms “the principle that the benefits of peaceful applications of nuclear technology, including any technological by-products which may be derived by nuclear-weapon States from the development of nuclear explosive devices, should be available for peaceful purposes to all Parties to the Treaty, whether nuclear-weapon or non-nuclear-weapon States.” (emphasis added). This point is even more emphatically made in Article IV of the Treaty which states, inter alia:

1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.

2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world. It is noteworthy that Part 1 of Article IV establishes the “inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.” And Part 2 of Article IV reiterates the availability and “exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy” (emphasis added). Throughout the years of western engineered crisis, Iran has maintained that it has the “inalienable right” to develop research, produce and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes yet the Western powers led by the US are adamantly refusing to allow it to do so. They have not only used the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) but also the UN Security Council to bully Iran into abandoning uranium enrichment.

US-Zionist nuclear violations

The US and the illegitimate Zionist regime have gone further. While denying Iran’s right to enrich uranium based on the unfounded allegations that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons, both countries and their allies are in clear violation of numerous Treaty provisions. The Zionists have refused to sign the NPT while the US and its allies have done little “to achieve at the earliest possible date the cessation of the nuclear arms race and to undertake effective measures in the direction of nuclear disarmament,” as stipulated in the Treaty preamble. Nor have the nuclear lepers taken steps “to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery pursuant to a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control,” as required by the NPT.

While accusing Iran of surreptitiously making nuclear weapons, the US and France have facilitated Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons in violation of Article I of the NPT. Zionist Israel is the only nuclear weapons state in the Muslim East. The US, Britain, France and Germany are also guilty of having provided the wherewithal to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Husain to make and then use chemical and biological weapons that are banned under the Geneva Conventions. Since Saddam’s regime used these weapons against Iran during the 1980–1988 war, these Western powers are equally complicit in Iraq’s war crimes.

The Western powers’ failure to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons, as called for in the NPT, is another glaring example of their hypocrisy. The aim of the NPT is not only to prevent nuclear proliferation but also to eliminate all nuclear weapons because of the extreme danger they pose to the survival of humankind. The two major nuclear states, Russia and the US, have eliminated some of their obsolete nuclear weapons but have proceeded to develop new generations of more lethal weapons. True, both the US and Russia have reduced their stockpiles from 20,000 nuclear warheads to about 10,000 each but is the world any safer? Two nuclear bombs are enough to obliterate much of humanity; what possible reason is there to maintain thousands of nuclear weapons?

Obama’s nuclear hypocrisy

At the NPT conference on November 5, 2010, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that her government would reveal the total number of nuclear weapons in its possession. Soon after her speech, the Pentagon issued a press release stating the US had 5,113 active nuclear weapons with additional 4,600 in reserve. Clinton also invoked President Barack Obama’s September 2009 speech in Prague in which he said he would seek “the peace and security of a world free of nuclear weapons.” But Obama has a remarkable propensity for speaking from both sides of his mouth. He announced in the same speech: “the United States will retain a nuclear deterrent for as long as nuclear weapons exist.”

This not only makes a mockery of the NPT provisions but also exposes the hollowness of the US doctrine of deterrence. Even while possessing thousands of nuclear weapons, the US has been militarily defeated in every country it has invaded since the Vietnam War (1964–1975). The most recent defeats suffered by the US have been in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus, while the US spearheads the campaign to “prevent” Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — something the Iranian leadership at the highest level has said they are not pursuing — the US is not about to give up its own stockpiles despite clear stipulations in the NPT.

For its part, Iran has gone out of its way to implement confidence-building measures. In 2003, it voluntarily suspended uranium enrichment in return for serious negotiations with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, that came to be called P5+1. Iran also accepted Additional Protocols on inspections, something it was not obliged to do, to allow IAEA inspectors intrusive monitoring of its nuclear facilities and activities. Iran made this conditional on lifting the illegal sanctions. For two years, the Western countries dragged their feet and refused to negotiate in good faith. While Iran’s enrichment activities, to which it was and is entitled, remained suspended, the West refused to lift any sanctions. Frustrated with the duplicity of P5+1, at the end of 2005, Iran notified the IAEA that it would resume uranium enrichment. Tehran called upon the IAEA to send inspectors so that the seals on its centrifuges would be broken in their presence. Iran also allowed the IAEA to install monitoring cameras according to NPT regulations. The Iranian announcement led to a storm of protests in the West. The Additional Protocols to which no other country has been subjected were considered a permanent condition for any future negotiations. Iran would not accept such terms when the West was not negotiating in good faith and was determined to deny Iran’s “inalienable right” to enrich uranium, as stipulated in Article IV of the NPT. Iran’s offers
Despite the West’s hostility, Iran has been forthcoming to move the discussions with the P5+1 forward. For instance, it proposed in 2007 that it was willing for a fuel swap. In return for handing over all stockpiles of 3.5% enriched uranium, Iran asked for 20% enriched uranium that is used in medical research and for making medical isotopes to treat cancer patients. Iran’s condition was that the swap should take place simultaneously and on its territory. The West rejected this out of hand.

In 2010, Iran agreed to another proposal, this one put forth by Brazil and Turkey after getting clearance from Obama. Iran would transfer its 3.5% enriched uranium to Turkey and receive 20% enriched uranium in return. The swap would occur simultaneously. The US rejected this proposal saying it had not agreed to such a swap. The Brazilian President Lula da Silva produced a letter from Obama in which he had agreed to precisely such a deal but the US president succumbed to pressure from the Zionist entity and members of Congress, the vast majority of whom act as paid agents of Israel. Obama said Iran must give up its uranium stockpile first and the West would enrich it to 20%. It would then be sent to Iran. The Islamic Republic refused to accept such an offer, for good reason.

There is a long-standing agreement between Iran and the US Boeing Corporation to supply spare parts for Iran’s aging Boeing fleet of civilian aircraft. Since the US has imposed sanctions on Iran, such spare parts are prevented from being exported to Iran. A number of Iranian planes have crashed due to lack of spare parts. US policy is directly responsible for jeopardizing thousands of passengers on Iran’s commercial planes. This is state terrorism. The International Civil Aviation Administration agrees with Iran but the US refuses to honour its contractual obligations. Given this American behaviour, Iran is left with little choice but to be extremely cautious in accepting any promises from the US on such a crucial matter as nuclear enrichment. The US game — and indeed that of its allies — seems to be to deprive Iran of its 3.5% enriched uranium that it has acquired over several years and leave it vulnerable.

While negotiations remain stalled, the US and Israel have been involved in acts of sabotage against Iran’s peaceful nuclear program on several fronts. In 2009, a lethal virus, known as Stuxnet, was spread into Iran’s centrifuges. The virus was specific to machinery produced by Siemens of Germany. The virus damaged a number of centrifuges, setting back the enrichment process but according to recent reports (February 14, 2012), Iranian scientists have managed to flush the virus out of their system. Experts believe that the US and Israel as well as their allies are probably involved in attempting to spread other viruses into Iran’s nuclear program. Such cyber warfare is likely to intensify and Iran would have to be prepared to deal with it to protect itself.

Call to murder

The virus infection has gone hand in glove with the assassination of Iran’s nuclear scientists. Glenn Greenwald of the online magazine, Salon, wrote on January 12, 2010: “Back in February, 2007, a controversy erupted when the University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds advocated that, in response to Iran’s nuclear activities, the US should be “killing radical mullahs and Iranian atomic scientists — in other words, have the US Government select religious leaders and scientists it dislikes in Iran and just murder them, despite long-standing domestic and international legal prohibitions on exactly such programs.” Greenwald’s article was written the day news of the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist and professor at Tehran University, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, broke out. Professor Mohammadi was killed when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle was triggered by remote control outside his home in the northern Tehran neighbourhood of Qeytariyeh. He taught neutron physics at Tehran University and was the author of several articles on quantum and theoretical physics that were published in international scientific journals.

What is revealing about Reynolds’ remarks is that even as law professor he is advocating the murder of Iran’s leaders and nuclear scientists. This is not only in violation of US domestic law but also international law. He is advocating state terrorism. But Reynolds is not alone. There is a host of American law professors that have made a career in calling for the murder, torture or kidnapping of people. John Yoo, the Berkeley law professor and Jay Bybee, who both served in the Office of Legal Counsel during George W. Bush’s presidency, wrote the infamous torture memos justifying torture and water-boarding of Guantanamo Bay detainees. Mere suspects have been subjected to torture, its horror softened up by calling it “enhanced interrogation technique.”

American and Zionist agents have been involved in carrying out the murders advocated by Reynolds and his ilk as well as actively promoted by the illegitimate Zionist regime. In November 2009, nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari was killed by a magnetic bomb while another scientist, Fereydoon Abbasi was seriously injured. This was followed on January 12, 2010 by the assassination of Professor Massoud Ali Mohammadi. Darioush Rezeainejad fell next to an assassin’s bullets on July 23, 2011. His wife was severely injured as the assassin fired bullets into their car. Dr. Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan fell victim on January 11, 2012 to a similar Zionist-instigated plot. There was also the case of nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri who was kidnapped in November 2009 while on Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. He mysteriously reappeared in Washington, DC on June 2010 when he sought refuge in the Iranian Interest Section after escaping from his American captors. He was reunited with his family a few days later.

What the kidnapping and assassinations of Iranian scientists indicate is that the US and Zionist Israel are involved in multiple strategies to undermine and destroy Iran’s peaceful nuclear program. These have continued in conjunction with threats of military attacks against Iran. Had Iran threatened to attack American or Israeli nuclear installations or killed their scientists, there would be an international outcry. In Iran’s case, it is presented as routine business.

The threats are not merely rhetorical. The US has a vast fleet of warships in the Persian Gulf including aircraft carriers Carl Vinson, John C. Stennis and Abraham Lincoln. There are also ships from the British, French and Israeli navies including nuclear-armed submarines. In addition, the US Fifth Fleet is stationed in Bahrain while Qatar serves as the home base for US CENTCOM. Dubai port is also used by the US navy while Oman serves as a British military base. Further south is the British base of Diego Garcia that stocks US nuclear missiles and deep penetration bunker busting bombs. There are US troops in Pakistan (Jacobabad airbase), more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, as well as in several Central Asian republics. Thus, the US has stationed a large number of troops in threatening formations around the Islamic republic. These are all intended to threaten Iran and force it to give up its peaceful nuclear program. In his State of the Union address on January 24, Obama repeated the threat: “All options are on the table” and the US would not allow Iran to acquire the bomb! There was not a whisper about Israel’s 200–500 nuclear bombs; similarly, the fact that Iran has repeatedly called for a nuclear-free Muslim East has been ignored. The US considers this to be a “threat” to Israel’s security!

Among all NPT signatory states, only Iran has been subjected by the IAEA to the most intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities. No other member-state, even those that have nuclear capability to build the bomb within a month if they so wish, such as Japan, Brazil and Canada, have not been subjected to such inspections. The nuclear lepers also refuse to reduce their stockpiles much less eliminate them as required by the NPT.

Despite intrusive inspections, the IAEA has found no evidence that Iran has diverted any nuclear material for unauthorized purposes but the IAEA continues to indulge in speculation. Its most recent report released on November 8, 2011 is loaded with phrases like, “we believe,” we “suspect”, and Iran may be diverting nuclear material to non-peaceful uses. The IAEA chief, Yukiya Amano, is closely tied to the Americans and his impartiality has been compromised by Wikileaks of 2009 in which American diplomats in Vienna described him as their man. The recent allegations were discredited even by the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in 2007.

Ramesh Thakur, director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament at the Australian National University, was so concerned about the IAEA report that in an opinion piece in the Toronto Star (November 13, 2011) he wrote that the agency’s new “report on Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program is both preposterous and dispiriting. Preposterous, because the agency has reinterpreted “old” facts instead of discovering new evidence. Dispiriting, because the reinterpretation may feed the growing punish-and-bomb Iran frenzy.” He accused Amano of “turning the IAEA into an instrument for justifying aggression against Iran.” Thakur also wrote that the 117 countries of the non-aligned movement were unhappy with the agency’s uncritical acceptance of Western-sourced intelligence on Iran’s nuclear activities and expressed concerns at Amano’s “departure from standard verification language.”

As long as the US is controlled by Zionists and other neo-con warmongers, ordinary Americans as well as people around the world will continue to pay the price for their aggression.

THE TREATY ON THE NON-PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS (NPT) — Some salient features

Article I

Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices. Article II
Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

Article IV

1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.

2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.

Article VI

Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. Article VII
Nothing in this Treaty affects the right of any group of States to conclude regional treaties in order to assure the total absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories.

Article X

1. Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.


Article from

Crescent International Vol. 41, No. 1

Rabi' al-Thani 08, 14332012-03-01


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