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Iran won't shelve uranium enrichment forever
Jordan Times, Sunday, November 30, 2003
TEHRAN (Reuters) — Iran has no intention of scrapping its disputed uranium enrichment programme, needed to provide fuel for at least one of eight nuclear reactors it plans to build, a top Iranian official said on Saturday. Faced with concerted international pressure, Iran agreed last month to allow snap inspections of its nuclear sites and suspend uranium enrichment, which can be used to make fuel for nuclear reactors or bomb-grade material.
"Our uranium enrichment programme has been suspended voluntarily, temporarily, to build trust," Hassan Rohani, secretary general of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told a news conference.
"But the issue of ending uranium enrichment is not in question and never has been nor will be," added the mid-ranking cleric, who emerged as Iran's key negotiator with European Union countries over the nuclear issue.
The UN's watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Wednesday condemned Iran's 18-year cover-up of sensitive nuclear research, including uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, and said any further serious breaches of non-proliferation obligations would not be tolerated.
Rohani said Iran had nothing to fear from tougher inspections of its nuclear facilities and would do everything it could to help the IAEA give Iran a clean bill of health in its next report, due in February.
"Whatever search, inspection or visit they want to do they can do, because they will come to the conclusion that Iran's nuclear activities are peaceful," he said.
First reactor to be completed in 2004
Rohani said Iran's efforts to produce its own fuel for nuclear reactors, including the development of uranium enrichment, were due to the scale of its nuclear energy plans.
"We want to have full control of the fuel cycle in Iran because we want to have eight reactors and we want to provide the fuel for at least one of those," he said.
The first of the reactors, each of which will have a capacity of 1,000MW, is being built with Russian help near the southwestern port city of Bushehr and should be completed by the end of 2004, he said.
Rohani, who noted that Iran's plans to generate nuclear power pre-dated the 1979 Islamic revolution, said Russia had expressed interest in building a second reactor at Bushehr.
Asked about a Reuters report that the IAEA was probing a possible link between Iran and Pakistan after Tehran acknowledged using centrifuge designs that appear identical to ones used in Pakistan's quest for an atom bomb, Rohani emphasised the work of Iran's own nuclear scientists.
"Even if we used people and companies in the past, right now it (Iran's nuclear industry) is domestic... We are now able to build all the parts for centrifuges and manufacture them inside the country," he said.
Rohani's role in negotiating the nuclear issue has thrust him into the public spotlight and led to intense media speculation in Iran that he may run for president in 2005.
Rohani, who political analysts say is closely tied to influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, declined to quash the speculation. "I have not made any decision yet (whether) to stand," he said.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03. |
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