Egypt denies it has nuclear program

CAIRO, Egypt — Egypt denied it has a secret nuclear weapons program in an angry response Sunday to reports that the U.N. atomic watchdog is investigating the discovery of plutonium particles near an Egyptian nuclear facility.

Diplomats in Austria said Friday that the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency is trying to determine if the plutonium particles are evidence of an Egyptian weapons program or simply the byproduct of peaceful research.

“Following newspaper and news agency reports about alleged Egyptian nuclear activity, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Electricity and Energy announce that these reports have no basis of truth,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement that was faxed to the Associated Press.

Egypt joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1981, signed a set of comprehensive guarantees with the IAEA a year later and has opened all its nuclear activities to supervision by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the statement said.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Egypt is well-known for “its strict and full adherence to all its obligations to the conditions of the international agreements and charters.”

“Egypt is the country which has called to keep the Middle East region free from all weapons of mass destruction,” he added.

European laboratories are analyzing the Egyptian samples, which could be from a cracked research reactor fuel element or could have other, nonmilitary origins, the diplomats said on condition of anonymity.