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Turkish PM speaks to BBC on Iran's nuclear program
In an interview with British broadcaster BBC's Nik Gowing, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Iran had consistently stated that it was seeking to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes.
Erdoğan said it was not right to manipulate the issue as if "Iran desired to possess nuclear weapons".
Noting he had personally warned Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad several times and told him that Turkey did not want any nuclear weapons in its region, Erdoğan said the Iranian leader said that his country did not have an intention to produce nuclear weapons.
Upon a question on whether he believed Ahmedinejad, Erdoğan said neither the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), nor intelligence organizations had certain reports on such matter.
"These are all rumours. Because, nothing like that has happened. So, it is meaningless to discuss it," he said.
In his reply to a question on whether Turkey's EU membership process lost velocity, Erdoğan said the process did not slow down.
Expressing Turkey's determination for the opening of the remaining chapters in its EU process, Erdoğan said, "Turkey will continue to walk towards EU in a determined way as long as the union does not close its doors to Turkey".
Commenting on whether a US congressional committee's recent adoption of a resolution on 1915 incidents would harm Turkish-US relations, Erdoğan said he still believed and confided in USA.
Noting that such development would not do harm relations between the two countries, Erdoğan said ties between Turkey and USA were not connected to relations with Armenia.
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