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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Iran's friendly atoms?

I'm back from St. Petersburg, Russia, where I was a speaker at AtomExpo, the annual conference sponsored by Rosatom which was held on the margins of the IAEA ministerial conference on Nuclear Power for the 21st Century last week. The conference includes a trade show and perhaps the largest booth was sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Our Iranian friends were touting peaceful nuclear energy:



This brochure describing Iranian nuclear fuel production capability was featured at the booth and includes the slogan "Nuclear Energy for All, Nuclear Weapon for None."  Not sure what the imperfect English is meant to convey - Weapon? You mean there's only one?


The brochure was in Russian and English. Putting aside the consternation over the safeguards and nonproliferation aspects of Iran's nuclear program, it's worth recalling that Iran is the only country with an operating nuclear power reactor that has not ratified the Convention on Nuclear Safety. If Iran is to be believed, isn't ratification a necessary step?