From UPI:

The State Department said Tuesday it will discuss with the U.N. nuclear agency reports Egypt may have violated non-proliferation treaties.

Reports quoting the International Atomic Energy Agency said earlier Tuesday Egypt might have conducted secret nuclear experiments. Such experiments would have violated international non-proliferation treaties.

“We’ve seen the press reports. We don’t have anything definitive or authoritative from the IAEA. I expect we’ll be discussing these press reports with them,” State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli told a briefing in Washington.

“We certainly believe it’s imperative that member states comply with their nuclear safeguards obligations.”

Egypt is a member of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and has an active safeguards agreement with the IAEA, the Vienna-based U.N. monitoring agency.

And here’s more, from Ha’aretz:

Egyptian scientists made small quantities of uranium compounds that could be used to make nuclear weapons – in one case maybe as recently as a year ago, diplomats said Tuesday, citing evidence gathered by the UN atomic watchdog agency.

The Egyptian government strongly denied Egypt was interested in making nuclear weapons.

The diplomats told The Associated Press most of the work was carried out in the 1980s and 1990s, but said the UN monitor – the International Atomic Energy Agency – was also looking at evidence that suggests at least one of the experiments ended in early 2004.

Specifically, said one of the diplomats, the Egyptians “tried to produce various components of uranium” without declaring it to the IAEA, as they were bound to under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Among the products were several kilograms of uranium metal and of uranium tetrafluoride – a precursor to uranium hexafluoride gas, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In Cairo, a government spokesman denied Egypt was interested in nuclear weapons, but did not specifically challenge the claims surfacing Tuesday. In Vienna, IAEA agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said the agency would not comment on the claims.

Awesome news!  And the best part?  Your tax dollars helped finance it.  Thanks, President Jimmy!

Elsewhere, “IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei Wednesday warned the United States against spying on the UN atomic agency saying it would be a blow to ‘multilateralism and the United Nations system as we know it.’”

El Baradei, coincidentally, is from Egypt.  Coincidentally.

****

See also:  LGF