• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Iranian FM sees Israel as a threat, denies nuke arms program

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New York, Oct 4, Kyodo/IRNA -- Iran is seeking fuel for its nuclear 
power plants and sees Israel as a threat to those nuclear facilities, 
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi says. 
Kharrazi, in an interview with Newsweek magazine, said: "When 
there is a threat, you have to take it into consideration and be 
prepared to react. We are prepared." 
Iran is trying to have uranium enrichment capability for 
"producing fuel needed in our power plants. It is not for producing 
nuclear weapons," he said in the interview to be published Monday 
(today). 
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has urged Iran to 
suspend all enrichment-related activities as a confidence-building 
measure. 
The IAEA suspects that Iran has failed to live up to a 2003 
agreement with Britain, France and Germany to stop enriching uranium. 
"We have suspended the enrichment process, but they are asking us 
to suspend related activities, by which they mean the production of 
spare parts," Kharrazi said. 
"For some time, in an agreement with the Europeans, we stopped 
manufacturing spare parts. But the Europeans were supposed to work 
actively to close Iran`s file at the IAEA. Since they failed to 
meet their commitments, we did not find ourselves committed to the 
agreement." 
Those European countries, the United States, Japan and other 
countries have urged Iran to stop all uranium enrichment-related 
activities to dispel international concerns that Iran may be trying 
to develop nuclear weapons. 
They say Iran should fully cooperate with the IAEA, ratify the 
additional protocol with the global nuclear watchdog at an early 
date and stop all uranium enrichment-related activities. 
In the interview with Newsweek, Kharrazi denied reports that Iran 
is providing support to Iraqi insurgents who are attacking US-led 
coalition forces. 
"On the contrary, we have been quite helpful in diffusing the 
crisis in Iraq -- especially in Najaf," he said. 
"Coalition forces are unable to secure Iraq and the government is 
facing many problems," he added. 
Kharrazi continued: "The people of Iraq are delighted Saddam 
Hussein is gone, but they are not happy with the presence of foreign 
troops. 
"That was America`s mistake. They thought that if people opposed 
Saddam Hussein, they would welcome the presence of Americans (which 
has not been so). Hence, the ground has to be prepared for the 
withdrawal of American troops from Iraq." 
/2321/1432