US and Israel table military action on Iran – Iran does not flinch
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Nuclear Iran
Bellona Archive
- Bush Administration actively pursuing strategies to attack Iran, according to Washington officials
- French president warns Iran it could be bombed if it does not curb nuclear ambitions
- Arab nations vie for nuclear power, leading to jitters over Middle Eastern A-bombs
- US presidential candidates weigh in against Iranian nukes
- US Congress pledges $50m to international uranium fuel bank - but what will this cost Russia's environment?
- Iran-EU talks again hit a wall – but ignoring past opportunities assured current impasse
- Iran ready to talk – but mixed signals remain on its uranium enrichment programme
- Iran Shoots Down EU Diplomacy On Uranium Enrichment Before It Is Even Tabled
- Diplomats Remain Split Over Iran Nuclear Question
- Iran Reports Huge Advances In Uranium Enrichment
- EU, Russia and US Urge Iran to Sign Inspection Protocol
- Israeli and Russian Official Hint Bushehr May Be Targeted During Iraqi War
- IAEA Visit to Iran Reveals Uranium Enrichment Facility Near Nantanz
- Halting Iran's nuclear ambitions
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The United States has also said it is ready to back military action against Iran in conjunction with Israel should sanctions fail to ratchet down Iran’s uranium enrichment programme. But it remains unclear if Washington and Tel Aviv have imposed any deadlines for stepped-up sanctions to bring about their desired result, raising the level of suspense in diplomatic circles.
Ahmadinejad’s defiant response to the West also came in the wake of an announcement by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran could have as many as 8,000 uranium centrifuges running by December, raising significantly the risk that it could be building nuclear weapons, diplomats said.
The UN Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions against Iran, and world powers are now threatening to impose more as fears grow that Iran is indeed pursuing a nuclear bomb programme. Ahmadinejad, apparently, wishes to stoke those fears.
"The Iranian nation does not give the slightest value to your resolutions," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech Tuesday.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei told reporters that: "The information (about the 8,000 centrifuges), would obviously, if confirmed, increase the concerns of the international community in this respect."
Tehran is on track to have 3,000 on line in July, diplomats briefed on IAEA inspections told Bellona Web Wednesday, enough to yield enriched material for a bomb within a year if there were no hitches and if Iran wanted it badly enough. The country has repeatedly said that it is only pursuing a peaceful nuclear energy programme.
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| IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. |
| IAEA |
Diplomats said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei had briefed the United States and European Union (EU) that Iran looked on target for 8,000 cetrifuges.
But some question if the IAEA was in a position to accurately determine Iran's nuclear advances.
"For over 16 months now, the IAEA has had no access to the workshops where Iran was making centrifuges or to its stockpile of raw material," said Mark Fitzpatrick, senior nuclear analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies told Reuters.
Iran rejects G-8 enrichment suspension resolution
Whatever the case, Iran remains steadfast in word that it will continue to enrich uranium regardless of Western pressures.
"There will be no (uranium) enrichment suspension in whatsoever form," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini told his weekly news briefing, according to the Xinhua Chinese newswire.
He urged all members of the UN Security Council to take a "realistic" approach to Iran's nuclear programme, saying that "they should take a stance on the case based on logic and on international rules."
Hosseini also said that Javad Vaeidi, deputy to Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, would meet on Monday with a representative of European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana for preparing the next round of their talks.
In the statement issued at the conclusion of the three-day G-8 summit at the German resort of Heiligendamm, the G-8 said it is still committed to resolving the Iranian nuclear issue by diplomatic means.
However, the G-8 said that it will "support adopting further measures, should Iran refuse to comply with its obligations" under UN Security Council resolutions 1696, 1737 and 1747.
Israel tables military action
Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister, Shaul Mofaz, said that continued diplomacy and sanctions are currently the best course of action during talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week, and said he would meet with the US State Department to evaluate the progress of sanctions at the end of this year, according to the Associated Press.
But State Department Spokesman Sean McCormick said in a statement issued to Bellona Web that he was not aware of any deadline for diplomacy with Iran.
Mofaz told Israeli radio on Saturday that Tel Aviv and Washington are in agreement about how to handle Iran. He said the United States and Israel had a three-element plan for dealing with a looming nuclear crisis with Iran.
The three elements include uniting an international front against the country’s nuclear programme. The second is continued sanctions. The most serious element, he told the Israeli Radio, is “a very, very clear signal that all options are on the table – I never said there is no military option, and the military option is included in all the options that are on the table, but at this time it’s right to use the path of sanctions and intensify them.”
Officials with the US State Department told Bellona Web confirmed Mofaz’s statement that Washington and Israel are in agreement about how to deal with Iran and said military action is a distinct possibility should diplomacy fail.
It would not be the first time Israel has used force to counteract what it sees as a potential nuclear threat from its neighbours in the Middle East. In 1981, Israel bombed a light water test reactor in the town of Osirak in Iraq.
Ahmadinejad apparently not afraid of sanctions or war
Ahmadinejad, in his television appearance, scoffed at the notion that the UN imposed sanctions had slowed progress of his country’s uranium enrichment ambitions, and hinted that even a military strike would not quash the programme’s progress.
"We are in the final stage and if they (world powers) want to continue on the wrong path, they can only take one more step. The next step, with God's help...not have any impact (on Iran)," he said without elaborating.
The crowd he was addressing chanted back, in what has become tradition when Ahmadinejad speaks on the nuclear issue: “Nuclear energy is our obvious right.”
Iran will ‘slap in the mouth’ those who threaten it
Ahmadinejad, who has distinguished himself as a fiercely defiant and fiery speaker, told the cheering televised rally that Iran “will slap those who threaten it in the mouth."
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| The core of the Bushehr reactor in 2005. |
| Bellona Archive |
He invoked that Iran was a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which gives it the right to develop nuclear power under safeguards of the IAEA. He said Iran is unfairly singled out for its nuclear ambitions – which he reiterated were aimed at building a network of nuclear power plants, allowing the country to conserve its massive oil and gas supplies for export. The first of these plants, scheduled to come online later this year, is a 1000-megawatt, $1 billion light water reactor built by Russia in the Iranian port of Bushehr.
"What the Iranian nation says about the nuclear issue is just one word and that is 'justice'. If there is a law, it should be for everyone," Ahmadinejad said.
"(They) don't even want us to have science and technology...This injustice will not be acceptable for the Iranian nation."
Iranian foreign ministry toned down but still pugilistic
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokem Hosseini lashed out at the G8 threat of imposing more sanctions against the country, saying that Iran's principled policy is to defend its "indisputable rights," Xinhua reported.
"Bringing up Iran's nuclear issue in the UN Security Council is clearly contradictory to international community demands," he said.
But Husseni, meanwhile, expressed that Iran welcomed diplomatic approaches to answer questions and clear up possible ambiguities concerning its nuclear programme.
"Iran is ready to participate in any kind of negotiations upon goodwill and without illogical and unilateral preconditions," he said, according to Xinhua.
The IAEA says Iran must answer questions about its ambitions before its programme can be given a clean bill of health, diplomats told Bellona Web.
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