Czechs refuse to lift ban on nuclear supplies for Iran

The Czech Republic voted no-confidence in the deal with Iran and refused to lift a ban on supplying it with equipment for a nuclear power plant. 

The Czech Parliament’s lower house on Friday rejected a government proposal to annul a 2000 law that bans Czech companies from supplying equipment for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.

The proposal took into account a 2015 deal that saw international sanctions on Iran lifted in exchange for curbing its nuclear activities.

Iran has one operational nuclear plant in the southern port city of Bushehr. It is planning to build more reactors there.

Last year, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the country’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, visited Prague to discuss nuclear cooperation. Iran is seeking help from European nations to improve what it describes as its civilian energy program.

Iran has denied ever seeking atomic weapons. Israel fears that the nuclear deal is an Iranian ruse to buy time towards the development of nuclear bombs that would be used to destroy the Jewish State.

Salehi said the project would be monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and was in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He called the project “a new page in the trend of our peaceful industrial nuclear activities.”

By: AP and World Israel News Staff