‘SA & Iran not gekoppel’

THE South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) rubbished claims by the US government that they are working with Iran on nuclear weapons.

American President Donald Trump has his eye fixed on South Africa, signing an executive order to stop aid to SA and accuse the government of land grabs from white Afrikaners.

The order also says that SA was “reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military and nuclear arrangements”.

But Necsa CEO Loyiso Tyabashe told the SABC at a media roundtable earlier this week that they are not bymekaar with Iran.

He says: “For Necsa, there is no memorandum of understanding with Iran and there are no working relationships that I am aware of as an organisation.

“I believe that the work we are doing is to collaborate with many other nations, including the USA going forward, because nuclear is a very collaborative space. There is no work that we are doing with Iran.”

Tyabashe added that Necsa is looking to add 2500MW of nuclear capacity to the national power grid.

Tyabashe said Necsa and power utility Eskom were largely in agreement on the turning of decommissioned power plants into nuclear stations.