Iran says ‘outrageous’ US attacks on ‘peaceful nuclear installations’ will have ‘everlasting consequences’.
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41s ago
(17:10 GMT)
If Iran withdraws from the NPT ‘other countries could follow suit’
If Iran left the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it would remove its “legal obligation not to build a nuclear weapon”, Mark Fitzpatrick, an Associate Fellow for strategy, technology and arms control, told Al Jazeera.
Iran would be “free to engage in nuclear activities without the oversight monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency”, he explained.
“Iran has been threatening to pull out of the NPT for several years… as leverage in diplomacy”, adding that “given the enormity of the situation that Iran faces”, the time has likely passed for such a threat.
Fitzpatrick, who is also a former director of the Non-Proliferation programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said he is concerned that if Iran were to withdraw from the NPT, other countries might follow suit.
He said nations like Saudi Arabia have vowed to match Iran if it were to pursue nuclear weapons, so it might take Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT as a signal that Iran was seeking “to pursue nuclear weapons in secret”.