DUSHANBE, 13 September 2004 — Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said here yesterday that his state was pushing forward with nuclear cooperation with Russia despite protests from the West.
He also said that Russia and Iran must unite against “certain countries” — a clear reference to the United States — which are trying to press their influence in the lucrative Caspian Sea region and its energy market.
“We are certain that all of the region’s powers must keep to good relations, and this will allow the regional powers to stand up against the ambitions of certain countries,” he told reporters through a translator. Khatami said the Russia-built nuclear reactor in the southern town of Bushehr would go ahead despite resistance from the United States and Israel, comments made during a visit to the Central Asian former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, with which it has linguistic and cultural ties. “Thankfully, despite all the pressure that is being put on Russia from all sides — including that from the United States — Russia has bravely declared that it is ready to cooperate with Iran,” Khatami told reporters. “We feel that our cooperation strengthens the whole region, makes it more stable,” he said. His comments came amid apparent efforts by Russian officials to slow down the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant amid Western worries over the project. Meanwhile, Iran yesterday rejected European demands it abandon sensitive nuclear activities but reiterated its readiness to provide assurances that its atomic ambitions are entirely peaceful.
Western diplomats say Britain, France and Germany have demanded Iran halt all parts of the atomic fuel cycle, particularly uranium enrichment, that can be used to make bombs. The European Union trio have proposed a draft resolution for a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) starting in Vienna today which gives Iran until November to dispel doubts about its nuclear program.
Asked about the EU trio’s stance, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi reiterated in Tehran that Iran had no intention of abandoning its efforts to master the nuclear fuel cycle. “If the Europeans and the international community want assurances that nuclear technology will be for peaceful purposes, we are ready to give assurances,” Asefi told a weekly news conference. “But if the issue is that we cannot master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, that is out of the question because we have already reached that point,” he said.
The trio’s draft does not order Tehran to be automatically reported to the UN Security Council if it does not meet the deadline, as Washington wishes. It says the IAEA board will “probably” consider whether further steps are needed after receiving IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei’s next report on Iran in November.
US Undersecretary of State John Bolton, President George W. Bush’s top official on nuclear non-proliferation, said yesterday when asked, during a brief visit to Israel, whether Washington would consider attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities: “President Bush is determined to try and find a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the problem of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons,” he said. “But we are determined that they are not going to achieve a nuclear weapons capability.”
