“That would be an admission that we are unable to be not only a producer, but a safe custodian of the technology for peaceful means,” she said at a press conference in Pretoria on Wednesday.

“So no, we are not handing over to anybody else, not because we are against anyone, but because we think we have all the safeguards.”

She was referring to the stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU) extracted in 1990 from the six or seven nuclear bombs the apartheid government had built.

It is now stored in the Pelindaba Nuclear Research Centre, west of Pretoria.

Available: http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/uranium-stockpile-will-stay-in-country-1.1834431#.VQvA644fuI8