No one can tell us what to do: Iran

Indo-Asian News Service
Aug. 20, 2005

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday rejected international demands for suspension of nuclear activities.

"No country has the right to tell Iran what to do. We will not make any concessions over our legitimate right. We are not afraid of anybody and we have the power to defend our rights," Khamenei said at Friday prayers in Tehran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called last week on Iran to close down its reopened uranium conversion plant in Isfahan in central Iran until September 3, otherwise Iran's case might be transferred to the UN Security Council.

Khamenei termed Iran's nuclear programmes "scientific and economic projects" and rejected the claim that Iran had sufficient oil and gas reserves and hence there was no need of nuclear energy.

"We need alternatives as our oil and gas reserves will one day be finished and then the country would have to approach the US for purchasing the same oil and gas," said Khamenei.

He said Iran has its own uranium mines, facilities, experts and know-how and therefore wants to produce the nuclear fuel for its plants itself.

"Telling us to purchase the fuel from outside is an imposition with the aim of making us dependent again on the West," said Khamenei, who in June 1989 succeeded the late spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

He said that Iran wants an enrichment grade of only three to four per cent -- just enough to make fuel -- and not for making an atomic bomb, as the US claims, which would require an enrichment grade of over 90 per cent.

Khamenei said Iran had never violated any international commitments but just followed regulations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the IAEA additional protocol, both allowing signatories like Iran to pursue civil nuclear activities.

"We even tried through long and calm negotiations to gain the European Union's confidence but now we expect, instead of threats, some confidence-building measures from the EU," he said.

Iran reopened on August 8 the uranium conversion plant in Isfahan where uranium ore is converted into hexafluoride gas and stored in the plant. The next step is to feed the gas into centrifuges for the enrichment process, to be effected in the neighbouring Natanz plant.

New chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani on Tuesday said Iran would not close down the Isfahan plant but it would also not resume uranium enrichment activities in Natanz, at least not without further negotiations with the EU.