TEHRAN, 20 August 2005 — Iran does not intend to build nuclear bombs, this country’s supreme ruler vowed yesterday, but said it won’t give up its right to enrich uranium because it wants to produce nuclear fuel by itself without relying on foreign help. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said Iran’s next step will be to build nuclear power plants without help from abroad. Russia is currently putting the finishing touches on completing a nuclear power plants in southern Iran.

“They (the West) speak as if Iran is seeking nuclear weapons and they oppose it. This is a propaganda trick to deceive their own public opinion,” Khamenei told tens of thousands of worshippers at Tehran University. “I’ve said it repeatedly that we are not seeking nuclear weapons,” he said in his Friday prayer sermons.

Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, said Iran wants to enrich uranium to low levels for use as fuel in nuclear reactors to generate electricity, not to a higher weapons-grade level for use in atomic bombs as America accuses Iran of seeking to do.

“We want to enrich our own uranium explored from our own mines with equipment and technology that belongs to ourselves developed by our young scientists to produce fuel for our nuclear power plants,” he said.

Khamenei’s comments follow Iran’s recent rejection of a European offer to permanently suspend uranium enrichment activities in return for a package of incentives. Iran’s nuclear program is a source of national pride and foreign attempts to curb it have been routinely greeted with criticism and anger.

“They (Europeans) say purchase it (nuclear fuel) from us. That means dependency,” the supreme leader said. Khamenei said Iran will not give up its attempts to control the whole nuclear fuel cycle — from extracting uranium to enriching it — in line with rights granted to it under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

“We don’t fear anybody. We have the necessary might and means to defend our rights and we won’t give up our rights,” he said while drawing shouts of “never, never” from worshippers. “No one has the right to compromise over the rights of the nation.” Iran suspended uranium enrichment in 2003 and expanded its suspension last November to include uranium reprocessing activities and building centrifuges used to enrich uranium. The moves were made to avoid referral to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions and to build trust in negotiations with Europe.

But Tehran ended its nine-month suspension last week and resumed uranium reprocessing activities at its Uranium Conversion Facility in Isfahan, in central Iran, after talks with Europeans failed to make any progress. Iran took the dramatic step after Britain, Germany and France offered Tehran a comprehensive package guaranteeing supply of nuclear fuel to Iran in return for Tehran giving up uranium enrichment.

Iran said it rejected the European package because it failed to recognize Iran’s right under the NPT to enrich uranium. Khamenei said European proposals for Iran to buy nuclear fuel from them and abandon its own uranium enrichment program were tantamount to “coercion.”

He also accused the Europeans of following the United States and lacking an independent approach in dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran is also planning to build nuclear power plants itself in the future, he said. “Hopefully, this nation and its youth will build nuclear power plants itself in a not distant future,” he said.

The Bushehr nuclear power plant on the shores of the Arabian Gulf, the first Iranian nuclear power plant being built by Russia, is expected to be operational by August 2006. Iran plans to build six more 1000-megawatt nuclear power plants until 2021, by when its electricity consumption will reach 56,000 megawatts. Iran says it will need to have the capability to produce 70,000 megawatts of electricity, with 7,000 megawatts to be met through nuclear power plants.