Iran's Ambassador to Denmark Hamid Bayat underlined that Iran, as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has never been after the production of nuclear weapons, specially due to the religious ban placed on such weapons by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei. “Basically such weapons have no place in the defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic, and besides the official source for the purpose, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has thus far reported no deviation in Iran’s nuclear program, and the claims made in this respect have all been baseless on the part of certain antagonist countries,” Bayat stressed while addressing a group of university students and professors at Denmark’s Aarhus University about the major regional and international developments on Sunday. He said that Iran has always emphasized that the nuclear weapons not only do not provide security for any country, but can themselves cause insecurity and instability. On February 22, 2012, Ayatollah Khamenei said the Islamic Republic considers the pursuit and possession of nuclear weapons "a grave sin" from every logical, religious and theoretical standpoint.