ASTANA, Kazakhstan, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Kazakhstan will quadruple its uranium production over the next 12 years but vowed to remain a nuclear free nation, a government minister said.
"We have all the ingredients for making an atomic bomb ... but we would not do it," Kazakh Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources Vladimir Shkolnik told foreign journalists in Astana.
The minister said Kazakhstan is the largest producer of uranium in the world, but it would continue to abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"We have plenty of uranium and we are using it for peaceful purposes," the minister said Monday night.
"We will increase our uranium production by four times by the year 2016," Shkolnik said.
He said after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia left behind 1,100 nuclear warheads in Kazakh territory.
"This arsenal was equal to 55,000 bombs of the size that was used in Hiroshima. We have returned the arsenal to Russia, which has since dismantled the warheads and the fuel is being used for the nuclear stations," Shkolnik said.
