Posted on 11/30/2004 12:19:09 PM PST by Pikamax
Iran Boasts of Victory Over U.S. on Nuclear Case Tue Nov 30, 2004 12:34 PM ET
By Paul Hughes TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran boasted on Tuesday it had defeated U.S. efforts to send its nuclear case to the U.N. Security Council while warning that its uranium enrichment freeze would only last for a few months.
"The Americans have been calling for Iran to be reported to the Security Council for a year and a half, now the whole world has turned down America's calls," Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani told a news conference.
"Despite the U.S. propaganda Iran has not relinquished its right to the (nuclear) fuel cycle and it never will do," said the cleric, who is secretary-general of Iran's top security body, the Supreme National Security Council.
His comments appeared to undermine European Union efforts to persuade Tehran to permanently mothball enrichment facilities -- which can be used to make atomic reactor fuel or nuclear bombs -- and were likely to fuel U.S. concerns that Iran secretly plans to produce nuclear weapons.
Iran, which insists its nuclear program is solely for electricity generation, on Monday escaped possible U.N. sanctions after agreeing to suspend all uranium processing and enrichment activities.
The EU hopes Iran will make the suspension permanent in return for trade deals and other incentives. But Tehran says the suspension is a voluntary and temporary measure designed to gain international trust.
"The length of the suspension will only be for the length of the negotiations with the Europeans and ... must be rational and not too long," Rohani said.
"We're talking about months, not years," he added.
The United States, which already has a ban on trade and investment with Iran, OPEC's second biggest oil producer, has voiced skepticism Iran will stick to the nuclear freeze and says it may take Iran's case to the Security Council on its own.
POSITIVE SIGN
Western diplomats have expressed growing frustration with Iran, which reneged on a similar suspension six months ago and wrangled over each step of negotiations on the current freeze.
But Rohani said Iran's talks with the EU over the nuclear issue were a positive sign to the world.
"This is a historical opportunity for Iran and Europe to prove to the world that unilateralism is condemned, that the world's most complicated matters can be solved by negotiation."
"Negotiations with Europe will be complicated, it won't be easy and will have lots of ups and downs," he added, warning: "If the Europeans do not show honesty, we will leave the talks."
"Europe wants objective guarantees that our enrichment activities won't be diverted to making weapons. How to implement this guarantee will be the most difficult part of the negotiations," he said.
The Iran-EU talks are due to resume on Dec. 15, by which time the two sides must resolve a dispute over 20 enrichment centrifuges which Iran wanted to exempt from the freeze.
Iran says it will not use the centrifuges to enrich uranium -- a process which can make atomic reactor fuel or bomb-grade material. But it wants to use them for other tests and research.
EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana said Iran's nuclear freeze meant talks would resume on a trade and cooperation agreement. The talks have been on hold for more than a year due to the nuclear issue.
Rohani said the world had nothing to fear from Iran's nuclear facilities. "If we had wanted to make a nuclear bomb we would have made one in the last 20 years," he said. (Additional reporting by Amir Paivar and Christian Oliver)
Iran is looking for a beatin'
Ugh. I had heard a report that Iran is expert at hiding facilities deep underground and that the US and the Israelis are very concerned.
Another strike like the one in Iraq in 1981 may be in the offing.
If they can find the targets.
This is further proof that the UN is nothing but a paper tiger when it comes to settling dangerous world matters. The UN and the EU are as useless as.........(you know the rest).
I cannot imagine what advantage they find in these last few months of behavior, or to what audience they think they are playing to.
DUH! If "diplomatic efforts" and the "involvement
of allies" fail, guess what comes next!?
And no, it won't be a single, 12-plane raid.
Can you say "Surround & Pound"? I knew
you could.
Which of the words "Surround & Pound"
don't these idiots understand?
MV
We all know that they just need these to use as cream separators in their version of the "Baby Milk Factory."
The closer Iran gets to building a nuclear device the closer they come to their own destruction.
Here we have people who dont know when they are well off.
Fine, let Iran make it's bogus deals with the perpetual appeasers in the EU and UN.
The US should then in turn up it's support for the Iranian pro-Democracy movement and thus get new, rational Iranian leadership to deal with.
And if Iran continues it's support for terrorists, ALL bets are off. The US military will attack Iranian military hold-outs at the same time the pro-Democracy movement siezes power internally.
What happened to all the students who were starting to protest their own government in Iran? For a while there I thought we were banking on a popular uprising against them.
Good thing we have the EU on the case! If it wasn't for them, this might be a real problem. :^P
Summary: Bomb us, I dare ya!
Those mullahs need to be rode hard and put away wet.
Yup, they certainly are. And with a big stick!
They got no meaningful support and were left to die on the vine...just like the pro-Democracy students in China were betrayed in 1989.
The problem with relying on any type of internal resistance is sorting out the real ones from the intelligence folks -- and many of the loudest ones are agents provocateurs. We don't have time to engage is such a time-consuming endeavor -- Iran will very soon have the bomb, and even if there were a significant real resistance, counting on it alone would be unwise. Rebellions are uncertain endeavors, at best, and we just don't have time to see how one might play out in Iran.
Amen and right-on!!!!!!!
why is iran being so vocal in its bragging, or, to quote #3,
Iran is looking for a beatin'
100 years from now everyone and his brother will have nuclear weapons. Kinda boggles the mind.
The first bomb Iran will drop will be on Israel, and then the western media will blame Bush, Israel etc, so on. Ie. "Naw, those Mullahs would never do a thing like that!"
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