TEHRAN, 22 September 2004 — Iran staged its annual show of military might yesterday, with President Mohammad Khatami vowing the Islamic republic will push on with its controversial nuclear program even if it risks international isolation.
Khatami’s warning came as Iran paraded its range of ballistic missiles draped in banners vowing to “crush America” and “wipe Israel off the map”, and announced it had begun converting a large amount of uranium ore into the feedstock for enriching uranium.
The president said the international community had to “acknowledge our natural and legal right and open the path for understanding... so we can accept comprehensive international supervision and we can continue our path to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes”.
“Otherwise we will continue on this path even if the result is the cutting off of international supervision,” he told a parade marking the beginning of “Sacred Defense Week”, the anniversary of the outbreak of war with Iraq in 1980. “We have made our choice and it is now the turn of others to chose,” he said in a response to a tough resolution passed on Saturday by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
His comments were later echoed by former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, a close aide to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who is tipped as a future president. “Whenever we stand firm and defend our righteous stands resolutely, they are forced to retreat and have no alternatives,” Velayati told the state IRNA news agency. “If a nation aims at reaching scientific and technological perfection and embracing high standards in national achievement, there will be costs it has to accept.”
The IAEA has demanded that Iran halt its controversial uranium enrichment-related activities, a part of the nuclear fuel cycle that can be directed to both energy and weapons purposes. Nuclear fuel cycle work, including enrichment, is permitted under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if it is for peaceful purposes — but the IAEA wants such activities here stopped pending the completion of its investigation. However atomic energy chief Reza Aghazadeh told reporters in Vienna that Iran had begun converting uranium yellowcake into the uranium gas that is fed into centrifuges to make enriched uranium despite the UN watchdog’s demands.
The United States in particular accuses Iran of using an atomic energy drive as a cover for weapons developments, and is seeking to have the country hauled before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
But Khatami also repeated denials that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons. “If we are under supervision or not, we will in no way try to acquire nuclear weapons because it is against our religion and culture. We are opposed to nuclear weapons,” he said.
The military parade, held near the mausoleum of Iran’s revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruholloh Khomeini on the southern outskirts of Tehran, featured ballistic missiles, tanks and militiamen on off-road motorcycles.
A banner stating “Israel must be wiped off the map” was draped on the side of a Shahab-2 missile, while a banner saying “We will crush America under our feet” was on the side of a trailer carrying the latest Shahab-3 missile. “The Shahab-3 missiles, with different ranges, enables us to destroy the most distant targets,” said an official commentary accompanying the parade, which was carried live on state television.
“These missiles enable us to destroy the enemy with missile strikes,” the commentary said, without giving any specific details on the range of the missiles.
The Shahab-3 missile, whose name means “meteor” or “shooting star” in Farsi, is thought to be capable of carrying a one-ton warhead at least 1,300 kilometers (800 miles), well within range of Israel. It was deployed among the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in July last year.
Khatami also used his speech to lash out at Israel, widely believed to be nuclear armed but not subject to IAEA controls because it is not a signatory of the NPT.
“The Zionist regime has transformed its small part of land into the biggest warhouse of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons,” Khatami complained, calling Israel’s mere existence “a threat not only to the region but the entire world.”
The United States, which charges that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons, said that industrial-scale uranium conversion, even if Tehran only designated this as “tests”, would be an alarming sign that Iran is continuing its alleged quest of the bomb.
Aghazadeh said that Iran has the centrifuge technology in place in order to convert the gas feedstock into enriched uranium if it so decided.
