Iran renews offer of nuclear tours for foreigners

Iran has renewed its offer of opening the gates of its nuclear facilities for foreign tourists to show the peaceful nature of its nuclear program, the official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.

Akbar Ghamkhar, chairman of Tehran's Tourism Union, told IRNA Friday on the sidelines of this year's ITB tourism fair in Berlin that the Iranian government has paved the way for foreign tourists to visit its nuclear installations.

It would be a chance for foreigners to witness firsthand Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, he added.

Iran's state media reported last year that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had given permission for foreign tourists to visit the country's nuclear facilities, a move aimed at proving peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program.

But so far no foreign tourists have reportedly visited those nuclear facilities.

Early last month, Iran showed its uranium conversion factory ( UCF) in central city of Isfahan to envoys from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) troika and Group 77 states.

The NAM envoys include Cuban, Malaysian and Egyptian ambassadors to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), while the Group 77 envoys are from Sudan and Bolivia.

It was widely believed that the trip was intended to show that Iran's disputed nuclear program is peaceful and not a cover for nuclear bomb making.

Source: Xinhua