Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Iranian Alert - February 8, 2005 - Nuclear Facilities Safe From U.S. Attack: Iran
Feb. 8, 2005

Posted on 02/08/2005 10:43:48 AM PST by nuconvert

Nuclear Facilities Safe From U.S. Attack: Iran

Tue, 08 Feb 2005

CBC News TEHRAN - Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Tuesday that the country wants to resolve its problems with the U.S., but cautioned that an American military attack would fail to destroy all its nuclear facilities.

"We are not seeking tension with the United States," negotiator Hasan Rowhani told Iran's state-run television. "We are seeking to resolve our problems with America but it's the Americans who don't want problems be resolved."

Washington recently ramped up the war of words against Iran. In last week's state of the union address, President George W. Bush accused the country of being "the world's primary state sponsor of terror." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently called Iran's human rights record "something to be loathed."

Washington believes Iran is secretly using its civilian nuclear program to build a nuclear bomb. Iran denies the allegation, saying its nuclear activities are geared solely toward generating electricity.

Although Rice on Friday said that a military strike against Iran was "simply not on the agenda at this point," Bush has not ruled it out as an option.

But Rowhani said that a U.S. military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities would fail. Its nuclear facilities are spread throughout the country and partly built under the ground, making an aerial attack difficult.

"Iran's nuclear technology is in the hands of its scientists and workshops throughout the country. All of them have the ability to produce centrifuges. Therefore, America will not be able to destroy our nuclear facilities and mines through a military strike," he said.

European governments oppose military action against Iran over its nuclear program.

Britain, France and Germany have been holding talks with Tehran to have Iran's program frozen.

http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2005/02/08/iran-nuke050208.html


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: alqaedaandiran; alsadr; anniversary; armyofmahdi; axisofevil; axisofweasels; ayatollah; azadi; binladen; china; cleric; democracy; elbaradei; eu; freedom; freedomdeficit; germany; humanrights; iaea; insurgency; iran; iranianalert; iraq; irgc; iri; islam; islamicrepublic; japan; journalist; kazemi; khamenei; khatami; moqtadaalsadr; mullahs; muslims; persecution; persia; persian; politicalprisoners; protests; rafsanjani; regimechangeiran; revolutionaryguard; rumsfeld; russia; satellitetelephones; shiite; southasia; southwestasia; studentmovement; studentprotest; terrorism; terrorists; us; vevak; wot; zawahiri
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-25 next last

1 posted on 02/08/2005 10:43:54 AM PST by nuconvert
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

TEHRAN -- A top Iranian security official and nuclear negotiator on Tuesday blamed the United States for the delay of the settlement of Iran's nuclear issue, warning a US attack would never destroy its nuclear facilities, the state television reported.

"We are trying to solve the problems, for in the current world there is no problem that is irresolvable. However, the Americans are not willing to resolve them," Hassan Rowhani, secretary of theSupreme National Security Council and chief nuclear negotiator, was quoted as saying.

Rowhani said Iran did not want to escalate tensions with the United States but was determined to defeat any aggression. (Iran-US-Nukes)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-02/09/content_2563558.htm


2 posted on 02/08/2005 10:44:48 AM PST by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Iran: Washington Blocking Efforts to Resolve Differences By VOA News
08 February 2005



The head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council says Tehran wants to resolve its differences with Washington and that a U.S. military strike will not destroy all of Iran's nuclear facilities.

Hassan Rowhani, who is also Iran's top nuclear negotiator, made the remark on state television Tuesday.

He said Iran can move its nuclear workshops under mountains and carry out its program where no bomb and missile could be effective.

Mr. Rowhani said Iran is not seeking tensions with the United States, but that Washington is blocking all efforts to resolve differences.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week that a military strike against Iran was "not on the agenda at this point."

The United States accuses Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-02-08voa115.cfm


3 posted on 02/08/2005 10:46:14 AM PST by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

New round of Iran-EU3 nuclear talks begins

Vienna, Feb 8, IRNA -- The new round of Iran-EU3 talks on Iran's nuclear program started in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday.
An Iranian diplomat wishing to remain anonymous told IRNA that the talks are going to be conducted by nuclear specialists.

Reluctant to disclose further information on the issue, he hoped that the ongoing negotiations will bear positive results.

He added that the talks are going to be held behind the closed doors and that the negotiators do not wish to present any information on the issue.

Another Iranian diplomat declared on Monday that no news coverage is intended on the current negotiations.

Similarly, the relevant EU officials have so far released no information on the third round of talks which is currently underway.

Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Hassan Rowhani and the senior Iranian negotiator on Iran's nuclear program has said that the relevant talks will only continue in case any progress is to be achieved in the ongoing process.

"The two sides had earlier agreed on a three-month negotiation period due to be expired on March 15, 2005," added Rowhani.

The first two rounds of Iran-EU nuclear talks were conducted in the Belgian capital city of Brussels and the Swiss city of Geneva respectively.

http://payvand.com/news/


4 posted on 02/08/2005 10:50:46 AM PST by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert
"We are seeking to resolve our problems with America but it's the Americans who don't want problems be resolved."


Here we go again. Sounds like a broken record. Can't they at least be original in their opposition to the US?
5 posted on 02/08/2005 10:51:18 AM PST by SMARTY ("Stay together, pay the soldiers and forget everything else." Lucius Septimus Severus to his sons)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Iran Talks Tough Ahead Of Nuclear Negotiations With Europeans

2/8/05

By Ron Synovitz, RFE

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani has warned of "retaliation" and an acceleration of Tehran's efforts to master nuclear technology if the United States or Israel attacks its nuclear facilities.

Prague, 7 February 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Tough words from Tehran to the United States and Israel yesterday follow criticism by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice against what she called Tehran's "loathed regime of unelected mullahs."

The warnings issued by Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohani, also follow a suggestion last month by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney that Israel could launch preemptive strikes against Iran's nuclear-enrichment facilities if it feels threatened by them. Israel, thought to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, has not said it will attack.

Rohani told Reuters yesterday that Tehran will "definitely have greater motivation" to accelerate the enrichment of nuclear material if Iran is attacked by the United States or Israel.

"I do not think America itself will take such a risk because America knows very well that we will strongly answer such an attack," Rohani said. "The Americans are very well aware of our capabilities. They know our capabilities for retaliating against such attacks."

Cheney said yesterday that the United States backs a diplomatic effort by the "EU Three" (Britain, France, Germany) aimed at persuading Iran to abandon nuclear enrichment. But Cheney said that Washington is not ruling out a military option in the future or other alternatives to diplomacy.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a weeklong tour of Europe and the Middle East, has been communicating the same message to leaders in those regions.

Speaking in a widely quoted BBC interview that aired yesterday, Rice said the United States remains focused on diplomatic efforts with Iran.

"We believe that this is a time for diplomacy," Rice said. "This is a time to muster our considerable influence -- we the alliance -- our considerable influence, our considerable 'soft power' if you will, to bring great changes in the world."

Analysts say Washington still appears to be far from making a decision on military strikes. That's because the European diplomatic initiative is still under way with negotiations scheduled to start in Geneva tomorrow.

European diplomats in Vienna say they want Iran to suspend all uranium-enrichment programs -- even those for peaceful use of nuclear energy -- as a guarantee that Tehran is not seeking nuclear weapons.

"The diplomacy that is going on at the moment from the European Union -- particularly from the United Kingdom, France, Germany -- is to persuade the Iranians that this is not in their interest," said Alex Standish, editor of the London-based "Jane's Intelligence Digest." And that it makes them a potential target, possibly, for an attack in the future, even if it is not currently on the agenda, from either Israel or the United States."

On the other hand, Standish concludes that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the diplomacy over North Korea's nuclear programs have convinced many Iranian officials that the only way to thwart military strikes by Israel or the United States is to become a nuclear-capable country as soon as possible.

U.S. officials and independent experts say that at the current rate Iran probably will not be able to produce a nuclear weapon for at least another three years.

Remi Leveau, a professor emeritus at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, noted that the United States has so far refused to be involved in direct negotiations with authorities from Iran's conservative Islamist regime.

"Obviously, Iran wants to discuss [these issues] seriously [and] directly with the United States," Leveau said. "If there is no direct involvement of the United States in terms of recognition [of Iran and the] prospects of a common vision on the future of the Middle East -- and especially in relationship with Iraq or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- the Iranians will just keep talking with the Europeans. But, I think, without really wanting to come to a significant agreement."

In his interview yesterday, Rohani called for "equal negotiations" between Iran and the United States, saying that agreement could be reached with Washington if talks are conducted "as two equal countries with equal rights."

Rohani also suggested that any breakdown in its talks later this week in Geneva will be the result of U.S. pressure on the EU diplomats.

"Basically, America and Europe, regarding Iran's nuclear issue, have some common aims and some united views," Rohani said. "In regard to some other goals, they have different views and think differently. Since the beginning, the Europeans have adopted a policy based on talks and negotiations with Iran. The basis for America's dealing with Iran was threats. But at the same time, we are in talks with the Europeans. And we hope the Americans, by pressuring the Europeans, are not going to destroy the talks and cause their failure."

In Tehran today, Iranian Vice President and head of the country's Atomic Energy Organization Gholamreza Aghazadeh told Iranian state television that the negotiations with British, French, and German diplomats will enter a crucial phase when they begin on tomorrow.

Aghazadeh said the conclusion of three months of nuclear negotiations is close. But he said European negotiators need to be more clear about their plans.

http://www.payvand.com/news/05/feb/1072.html


6 posted on 02/08/2005 10:52:39 AM PST by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert

Bushehr Satellite Photos

"For domestic electrical use"..HUH?

Notice the lact of power transmissinn line from the plant

7 posted on 02/08/2005 10:53:10 AM PST by Robe (Rome did not create a great empire by talking, they did it by killing all those who opposed them)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert

ya know if these morons' brains were dynamite they couldn't blow their noses...

just what do they think they're accomplishing???duuhhhh

one air strike and the whole place will look like a Sears parking lot on Christmas day!

So they might as well pack up their toys and go say their prayers...
there won't be any nukes in Iran and that's the bottom line!


8 posted on 02/08/2005 10:53:10 AM PST by kellynla (U.S.M.C. 1st Battalion,5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Div. Viet Nam 69&70 Semper Fi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Robe

"Notice the lact of power transmissinn line from the plant"

details, details........


9 posted on 02/08/2005 10:54:25 AM PST by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert

Gosh, they must need electricity REAL BAD to be willing to risk their entire country! Maybe they should buy some batteries...


10 posted on 02/08/2005 10:57:36 AM PST by Edgerunner (Proud to be an infidel.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

What Sistani Wants

He refuses a new air conditioner, yet his office is Internet-wired. He wants women to take political office, but not to shake the hands of men outside their families. He is easily the most powerful man in Iraq. Yet he's an Iranian

By Rod Nordland and Babak Dehghanpisheh
Newsweek


Feb. 14 issue - It's interesting that most published accounts describe Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani as a tall, slender man, towering over his aides and visitors. Actually he's on the short side, about 5 feet 8, but the error is understandable. The housebound cleric has hardly set foot out of his tiny abode in the slums of Najaf in six years. He never gives speeches, never even presides at Friday prayers at the golden-domed Imam Ali shrine, the holiest place in Shiite Islam, only a few hundred feet from his home. But he does receive visitors, hundreds a day, normally, always seated on a thin cushion on the floor of his barrani, or receiving room, wearing a gray robe that is often threadbare, and a large black turban. He won't be photographed (the few grainy images of him were taken without official permission), and he never gives interviews. He is the very picture of an ascetic Islamic prelate, a picture that would not have looked much different if it had been painted five centuries ago. His visitors invariably leave impressed, often describing the encounter in mystic terms; small wonder they remember him as tall.

This is the image that Sistani has carefully crafted over the years, but there's another side to it. He may live humbly and poor, but he also presides over a multimillion-dollar network of charities and religious foundations from Pakistan to England. He may not get out very much, but he has a highly developed network of representatives in every Shia neighborhood in Iraq. One of his sons-in-law runs an Internet company with 66 employees in the Iranian city of Qom, and Sistani's own office is one of the best-wired in Iraq. The interim government installed a T-1 connection to the Internet, so his representatives can stay in touch by e-mail. When he has new visitors, his staff Googles them and prints out a briefing paper. When folks in Baghdad, 90 miles north, need to call his office, they dial a local number that patches through. And he may refuse to have his photo taken, but he doesn't object to his followers' plastering the few available grainy shots on campaign posters and mosques around the country.

All that makes sense. Al-Sayid Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani is now indisputably the most powerful man in Iraq. The elections he demanded, on the terms he insisted upon, were an unexpected success; the party he crafted, and then blessed, has won a landslide victory. The United Iraqi Alliance, better known as the Shia List, racked up more than 65 percent of the votes counted as of last weekend. That's at least enough to choose the leaders of the new government, and when final results come in, it may come close to the two-thirds margin necessary to dictate the terms of Iraq's new constitution. "Ayatollah Sistani is very elated," says Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a member of the United Iraqi Alliance and national-security adviser to the interim government, who spoke to him by phone as results came in last week.

But it raises the question: who is Ali Sistani, really? Is he the ayatollah with a 20-page bibliography of arcane Shia theology to his credit, whose conservative views on the role of Islam in society will reshape the new Iraq? Or a great modernizer who issued a fatwa saying women should vote even if their husbands objected? "The language that Sistani uses in Arabic is quite distinctly drawn from the Enlightenment, from Rousseau and from Jefferson: a legitimate government derives from the choice of its people," says Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, an expert on the Shia.


But the ayatollah also has insisted that Iraq's new constitution must be in line with Islamic principles, and recognize Islam as the nation's religion. Iraq's women are encouraged to vote as they want but, under Sistani's teachings, they won't be able to shake the hand of any man other than a father, brother or husband. (Sistani also forbids music for entertainment, dancing and playing chess.) "It's the Shiite equivalent of the Christian Coalition," says Cole. "The Christian Coalition doesn't want pastors to rule America, but it does want Christian ideals to govern policy."

Sistani is both a savior and a frustration to American policymakers. "Yes, he's a kingmaker. Yes, he's powerful," says one U.S. official. "But he won't meet face to face." No American official has ever been able to see Sistani, whose aides say he thinks such a meeting would justify the U.S. occupation. But while he has condemned the occupation, he has never issued a fatwa against it—something that would be certain to bring millions of Shia into the streets. The Sunni-based rebellion has been difficult enough, but hardly a mass movement, and Sistani actually helped end the brief Shia rebellion led by Moqtada al-Sadr. "It's masterful," said the U.S. official, with grudging admiration. "Frankly, I have a lot of respect for his political savvy."

Those who suspect Sistani's true intentions are quick to note that the country's most powerful man is not even an Iraqi, but an Iranian. He came to Najaf, Shiite Islam's holiest city, more than 50 years ago as a disciple of the then Grand Ayatollah Abul Qasim al-Khoei. Until last August, Sistani never left, nor did he give up his Iranian citizenship. Al-Rubaie said he offered to get him an Iraqi passport after Saddam's regime fell, but Sistani's response was characteristic: "He said, 'Dr. Rubaie, what would I do with this? I'm a man going to his grave. I haven't left Najaf for 13 years. Why do I need it?' " When he developed heart trouble last August, he went to London for treatment on his Iranian passport. Although Sistani made it a religious obligation to vote in Iraq's elections, he wasn't qualified to cast a ballot himself. His followers say he's above nationality, as the Roman Catholic pope would be. "He's the spiritual leader of all the Shia in the world," says Sheik Jalaladin al-Saghir, imam of an important mosque in Baghdad. "Iranians as much as Iraqis."

Sistani was a contemporary in Najaf of the then far more famous Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran. Khomeini spent many years there in exile, crafting his philosophy of velayat al-faqih, or "rule of the jurisprudent," which laid the foundation for the theocracy Khomeini established after the Iranian revolution. The concept was that clerics should create a perfect Muslim state, which would make their followers perfect Muslims. Sistani followed a different, quietist philosophy, whereby clerics kept their distance from politics. He was elevated to the status of mujtahid at the unheard-of age of 31, meaning he was able to make religious rulings, something usually reserved for older clerics. But by all accounts, Sistani and Khomeini were never friends.

Sistani's power is partly financial. As one of only a handful of grand ayatollahs, he is revered throughout the Islamic world and has far more personal followers in Iran than the theocratic hard-liners there. Shia pledge a fifth of their disposable income to their personal marja, or "object of emulation," and such support translates into a huge income—one that has flowed far more freely to Sistani since the end of Saddam's regime.


It has had no effect on the ayatollah's austerity. He rarely eats meat, insisting on a peasant diet of yogurt and rice. Once when he was sick, says Sheik al-Saghir, an aide brought him fruit juice to drink. "He refused. He said, 'People are not finding potable water and you're bringing me juice? No'." When his air conditioner broke down, goes an oft-told story in Najaf, aides brought him a new one that wouldn't be as noisy. Instead, he insisted on repairing the old one and giving the new one to a poor family. When the 74-year-old Sistani went to London for heart treatment, the well-heeled Al-Khoei Foundation there (which Sistani is said to control) put him up in a comfortable Mayfair town house; he had the double bed removed and slept on a mattress on the floor. All of that gives him enormous credibility with Iraq's Shia, who had little power in Saddam's regime and were overwhelmingly poor.

The Sunni insurgents, both foreign extremists like Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and their Iraqi allies, have targeted Shias and their leaders just as much as the Iraqi government and American troops, even setting up highway checkpoints on roads leading to Najaf and killing any Shia they find. Mohammed Bahr Aluloom, a Shia politician, was so incensed by the wave of sectarian murders last November that he went to Sistani to argue for a Shia militia to fight back. "We're not going to have our families attacked by terrorists," Aluloom still insists, banging his wooden cane on the floor. "Everything has its limits. Once that limit is passed, all that's left is God and your weapon." But Sistani spoke very quietly to him. "Please don't do this," he said. "Please be civilized. We don't want to start a civil war. This is the most important point." Aluloom obeyed.



(see link for rest of article)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6920460/site/newsweek/


11 posted on 02/08/2005 11:01:22 AM PST by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert

All right. Maybe we destroy 90 percent of them. How's that ?


12 posted on 02/08/2005 11:01:37 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert
"I do not think America itself will take such a risk because America knows very well that we will strongly answer such an attack," Rohani said. "The Americans are very well aware of our capabilities. They know our capabilities for retaliating against such attacks."

Seems to me that this is validating just what Bush is saying.

13 posted on 02/08/2005 11:07:15 AM PST by morque2001 (Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert
"I do not think America itself will take such a risk because America knows very well that we will strongly answer such an attack," Rohani said. "The Americans are very well aware of our capabilities. They know our capabilities for retaliating against such attacks."

Seems to me that this is validating just what Bush is saying.

14 posted on 02/08/2005 11:07:40 AM PST by morque2001 (Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

Iran Daily
Wed, Feb 09, 2005
BAHMAN 21 1383


Rafsanjani:

No Place for Imposed Globalization

TEHRAN, Feb. 8--Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said here Monday that the globalization trend should be resisted if it is accompanied by further bullying of major powers.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of an International Seminar on Globalization and Muslim Women, he said globalization founded on coercion and intimidation is tantamount to cruelty against humans.
The chairman of the arbitrating body, the State Expediency Council, said the big powers are abusing the globalization process despite strong opposition from various groups across the globe.
"For instance, the big powers created the United Nations after the Second World War to impose the right of veto and pursue their own agendas."
The former president singled out the US for special condemnation and said the "United States is acting as a janitor at he World Trade Organization, and preventing countries opposed to its policies from entering the WTO."
Rafsanjani said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established to help nations benefit from the peaceful use of nuclear energy, whereas the agency is now bullying selected countries.
"Iran's nuclear dossier has been subject to bullying by the IAEA despite the fact that Tehran opened all doors to the inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog," he complained.
He said nuclear allegations against Iran are being hurled
when Israel has stockpiled banned nuclear weapons without any protest or opposition from the IAEA.
He, however, urged cooperation by all countries with the international bodies and the need to uphold international laws to help promote peace and stability in the world.

http://www.iran-daily.com/1383/2211/html/


15 posted on 02/08/2005 11:07:47 AM PST by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Iran Releases Dissident Cleric

Monday, 7 February, 2005

The Iranian judiciary has released a leading dissident cleric, Hassan Yusefi Eshkevari, after more than four years of imprisonment.
The cleric was arrested in 2000 after returning from a Berlin conference, which the authorities said aimed to topple the Islamic Republic.

He originally faced charges including heresy which is punishable under Iranian law by the death sentence.

A court later dropped the main charge and sentenced him to seven years' jail.

He was eligible for release after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4242643.stm


16 posted on 02/08/2005 11:10:56 AM PST by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Tue 8 Feb 2005
Scotsman.com

Iran Seeks to Resolve Problems with U.S.



Iran’s top nuclear negotiator said today that Tehran wanted to resolve decades of differences with the United States but warned that a US military strike would not be able to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“We are not seeking tension with the United States,” Hasan Rowhani told the state-run Iranian television. “We are seeking to resolve our problems with America but it’s the Americans who don’t want problems to be resolved.”

Iran’s leaders have tried in recent days to ease increasing tensions with Washington amid a continuing war of words.

US President George W Bush last week accused Iran of being “the world’s primary state sponsor of terror.”

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week a military strike against Iran was “simply not on the agenda at this point,” but Bush has not ruled out a military strike saying his administration wouldn’t take any option off the table.

Washington believes Iran is secretly using its civilian nuclear programme to build a nuclear bomb. Iran has denied these allegations, saying its nuclear activities are geared solely towards generating electricity, not making bombs.

“There is no problem in today’s world that can’t be resolved,” Rowhani insisted.

Rowhani, who is the secretary of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, said a US military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would fail.

“Iran’s nuclear technology is in the hands of its scientists and workshops throughout the country. All of them have the ability to produce centrifuges. Therefore, America will not be able to destroy our nuclear facilities and mines through a military strike,” he warned in the television interview.

Israel has warned that it may consider a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear installations along the lines of its 1981 bombing of an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak near Baghdad but Iranian officials have said any potential attack would fail.

Iran’s nuclear facilities are spread throughout the country and partly built underground making it difficult for an air attack to succeed.

The broadcast reported that Iran had begun a new round of nuclear talks with the Europeans in Geneva yesterday, which some Iranian diplomats called “perhaps the last round of talks.”

Iran this week called on the Europeans to speed up the talks, reflecting frustration over the lack of progress over the Europeans’ insistence that Tehran turn its temporary suspension of nuclear activities into a permanent stop.

Iran suspended uranium enrichment and all related activities in November, hoping to build trust and avoid UN Security Council sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency has agreed to police the suspension.

Under an agreement reached with the European Union, Iran will continue suspension of its enrichment activities during negotiations with the Europeans about economic, political and technological aid. Iran has said it will decide within three months whether to continue its suspension, which is monitored by UN nuclear inspectors.

Rowhani said Iran will never scrap its nuclear programme and won’t give up its rights under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty which allows Iran access to peaceful nuclear technology.

“Talks can’t continue for a long time. The Europeans have been told that the period of negotiations has to be within months and not years,” he said in the television interview.

“And the condition to continue the talks is progress. Therefore, if by the end of the (Iranian calendar) year (March 20), there is no progress in the talks, we will not be obliged to continue the talks,” Rowhani said.

He also insisted that Iran now possesses the technology to control the whole nuclear fuel cycle – from extracting uranium ore to enriching it.

“We have the ability to extract uranium, process it into yellowcake and enrich it and produce fuel. We can claim that we control the nuclear fuel cycle,” he said.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4104454


17 posted on 02/08/2005 11:14:55 AM PST by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: McGavin999; sionnsar; AdmSmith; parisa; onyx; Pro-Bush; Valin; Pan_Yans Wife; seamole; ...

DoctorZIn is away for few days so I am pinging you to the IRANIAN DAILY THREAD. ;-)

PING


18 posted on 02/08/2005 3:25:06 PM PST by F14 Pilot (Democracy is a process not a product)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: F14 Pilot

Thanks for the ping.


19 posted on 02/08/2005 4:26:30 PM PST by parisa
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: parisa

Subject: FW: SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF


Another Iranian Woman in the Science News...


Look, iranian.com: Iranians of the day. You can see this page at: http://www.iranian.com/PhotoDay/2005/February/az.html

And, also this:

Subject: Once Again Attack on Dead Baha'is
>>Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 12:42:47 -0800
>>
>>
>>Look, iranian.com: News pix. You can see this page at:
>>http://www.iranian.com/PhotoDay/2005/February/c5.html
>


20 posted on 02/08/2005 4:42:10 PM PST by parisa
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-25 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson