TEHRAN, 4 October 2004 — Iran said yesterday it has already acquired the sensitive technology to produce its own nuclear fuel and that it would be “irrational” to agree to surrender such a capability in exchange for supplies from overseas.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was reacting to US Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who has suggested providing Iran with nuclear fuel to generate electricity if the country agreed to give up its controversial work on the nuclear fuel cycle.
“One should not put one’s fate in the hands of others. It would irrational,” Asefi said.
“We have the technology and there is no need for us to beg from others. This suggestion is good for countries that do not have this technology, but we do not need their generosity and help,” he added.
In a debate with US President George W. Bush, Kerry said the United States should have joined a British-French-German initiative aimed at getting Iran to agree to stop work linked to the enrichment of uranium.
Asefi said Iran needs to be self-sufficient when it comes to fuelling its atomic energy program. “What guarantees are there? Will they supply us one day, and then if they want to, stop supplying us another day?” he asked.
Asefi repeated that “we have no taken a decision yet” on resuming enrichment, but cautioned the IAEA against putting too much pressure provoking the country’s hardliners.
Iran’s parliament has begun putting together a bill forcing the reformist government to buck the IAEA demand and resume enrichment — a step certain to place Iran on a collision with the UN’s nuclear watchdog.
And a senior MP said a huge majority of deputies were supportive of such a step. “The plan to oblige the government to resume enrichment has the support of 238 deputies” in the 290-member house, Allaeddin Borujerdi, head of the Majlis foreign policy and national security commission, told reporters.
He said an eventual bill on the issue “would be certain of having a large majority” of deputies voting for it.
The conservative MP said that his commission would begin discussing the move, entitled “the bill to oblige the government to develop civilian nuclear technology”, tomorrow.
US Undersecretary of State John Bolton, in comments published in Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper yesterday, stressed the Bush administration’s tough line on Iran.
“We are not considering any military intervention at the moment. But our position is that we should not exclude any option from the start. Iran must understand that our policy red line is the acquisition of nuclear weapons,” he said.
“The most important thing at the moment is to get Iran on to the agenda of the UN Security Council to demonstrate that the international community won’t accept it acquiring nuclear status,” he added.
