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New Delhi (AFP) Jan 29, 2007 India's ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi said Monday the country's nuclear arsenal was borne out of its "strategic compulsion" but renewed New Delhi's call for global disarmament. Her comments came during a conference celebrating the legacy of India's freedom champion Mahatma Gandhi, who chose non-violence as his tool to campaign against 300 years of British colonial rule. "Nuclear weapons became a strategic compulsion for India, born out of its failure to persuade the world to abolish them," she told international delegates in New Delhi. "They (nuclear weapons) have become the very currency of power," Gandhi said. "But the commitment (of India) to comprehensive, universal nuclear disarmament remains our profound conviction which we intend to carry forward," the Italian-born widow said. India, which refuses to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, conducted a series of nuclear weapons tests in May 1998 and then declared an unilateral moratorium on further testing.
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Tehran, Jan 27 (AFP) Jan 27, 2007Iran gave conflicting signals on its disputed nuclear work on Saturday with the Islamic republic's atomic energy agency denying Tehran has started to install 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium. "No new centrifuge machines have been installed in the Natanz facility," Hossein Cimorgh, public relations director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, was quoted as saying by IRNA news agency. |
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