NCA says nuclear weapons are safe

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan insisted on Tuesday its nuclear weapons were fully safe and secure and it would not accept any “discriminatory treatment” that undermined its strategic deterrence.

A cache of U.S. diplomatic cables released recently showed widespread international concern about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

The cables released by WikiLeaks said that the United States had been secretly trying to convince Pakistan to allow it to remove the uranium because of fears the nuclear material might be stolen or diverted, but Pakistan turned down the request.

Pakistan’s nuclear watchdog dismissed said that its security measures were second to none.

“As a nuclear weapon state, Pakistan is fully cognisant of its responsibilities, and has established effective and robust command and control structures and comprehensive export control and

Obama to pursue UN sanctions despite Iran nuclear deal

US President Barack Obama has vowed to pursue fresh UN sanctions against Iran despite Tehran’s nuclear deal with Turkey and Brazil.
President Obama telephoned Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan to say Iran’s moves still do not build confidence. Brazil and Turkey earlier urged fellow members of the UN Security Council to heed a deal they struck with Iran over its nuclear programme. The deal would see Tehran trade uranium for ready-enriched reactor fuel. Many Western countries have long suspected Iran is trying to make a nuclear weapon, but Tehran insists its programme is for purely peaceful, energy purposes. President Obama told Mr Erdogan there were still fundamental concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme. The White House said President Obama had acknowledged the deal set out by Turkey and Brazil. But the US president stressed the international community’s continuing and fundamental concerns about Iran’s overall nuclear programme, as well as Iran’s failure to live up to its international obligations. The statement added: Further, he indicated that negotiations on a new UN Security Council resolution will continue.

America Is Having Good Relations With Israel: Obama

President Barack Obama said that keeping Tehran without a nuclear weapon is one of his highest priorities. He added that US is having good relations with Israel.

Obama says a nuclear-armed Iran could trigger an arms race in the Middle East, something his administration wants to avoid.
Obama added work already under way among international partners to isolate Iran.
Thanks for your comments

Dir: School Blast Toll Rises to 6

DIR, Pakistan News: Some six people including four foreign journalists were killed while several others injured when a blast took place near a girls’ high school in Koto, Lower Dir.
According to sources, inauguration ceremony of the said school was about to start when the blast occurred in which four foreign journalists among six killed. Many journalists including a foreign journalist were among the participants of the ceremony. Police and law enforcement agencies threw cordon around the area and started investigation. Rescue efforts were also kicked off. Lower Dir DPO Mumtaz Zareen said that a security forces’ convoy was targeted in the blast. It merits to mention that so far militants have destroyed several schools in Koto.

---

Dir: School Blast Toll Rises to 6 was first posted on February 3, 2010 at 12:40 pm.

Iran Ready to Send Uranium Abroad

TEHRAN: Iran said that it was ready to send its uranium abroad for further enrichment as requested by the UN. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the decision in an interview with state Iranian television.
He said Iran will have “no problem” giving the West its low-enriched uranium and taking it back several months later when it is enriched by 20 percent. The decision could signal a major shift in the Iranian position on the issue. Still, it was unclear how much of a concession the Ahmadinejad comments represented, even though he appeared to be saying for the first time that Iran was willing to ship out its enriched uranium and wait for it to be returned in the form of fuel for its Tehran research reactor. But his time frame of four or five months appeared to fall short of the year that Western officials say it would take for Iran’s enriched fuel to be turned into fuel rods for the reactor.
If that difference cannot be bridged, it could allow Iranian officials to assert that the deal failed due to Western foot-dragging, despite their readiness to accept the proposed formula of shipping out the bulk of their enriched uranium and waiting for it to be converted and returned as fuel.
Ahmadinejad also did not address whether his country was ready to ship out most of its stockpile in one batch — another condition set by the six world powers endorsing the fuel swap. If Iran were to agree to export most of its enriched uranium in one shipment, it would delay its ability to make a nuclear weapon by stripping it of the material it needs to make the fissile core of a warhead.

---

Iran Ready to Send Uranium Abroad was first posted on February 3, 2010 at 1:38 pm.

No Evidence That Iran Will Have Soon Nuclear Weapon: ElBaradei

WASHINGTON: Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing head of the UN atomic watchdog, called the threat from Iran “hyped” and said there was no evidence that the Islamic republic will soon have nuclear weapons. In an interview released Tuesday, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) hit back at critics who accuse the Egyptian of covering up Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“In many ways, I think the threat has been hyped,” ElBaradei told the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based magazine critical of nuclear weapons. “Yes, there’s concern about Iran’s future intentions and Iran needs to be more transparent with the IAEA and international community,” he said. “But the idea that we’ll wake up tomorrow and Iran will have a nuclear weapon is an idea that isn’t supported by the facts as we have seen them so far,” he said.

In a report last week, the IAEA said that Iran had slowed production of enriched uranium, which can be used to make a nuclear bomb, and agreed to tighter monitoring of its enrichment plant. The United States downplayed the report, saying that Iran was still not co-operating fully with the UN inspectors.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said that the IAEA report did not include a classified annex incriminating Iran. Israel has long been critical of ElBaradei and asked in 2007 that he be fired. ElBaradei, who along with the IAEA as an institution won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, rejected the criticism.”About Iran, I’ve been told, ‘Mind your own business; you’re a technician.’ And yet, at other times, on other matters, I have been told that I’m the custodian of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – sometimes by the very people who tell me to mind my own business when it comes to Iran,” he said. “I don’t put much stock in either designation. I’m neither a custodian nor a technician; I’m merely someone who is trying to do his job,” he said. ElBaradei steps down at the end of November, handing over to Yukiya Amano, a veteran Japanese diplomat.

---

No Evidence That Iran Will Have Soon Nuclear Weapon: ElBaradei was first posted on September 2, 2009 at 11:27 am.
©2009 “Pakistan News“.