• Military

• WMD Menu                           

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

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Nation's legal right to access nuclear technology non-negotiable

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, June 24, IRNA
Iran-Press-Nuclear
The morning daily, Jomhouri Eslami, in its editorial on Saturday, titled "Red Line", said that support for Iran's right to access nuclear technology assumes a new dimension every day.

The editorial said that in addition to the 116 members states of the Non-Aligned Movement, which unanimously expressed support for Iran's right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, the foreign ministers of OIC member states in their statement issued in Baku last week declared their opposition to any preconditions for holding talks with Iran on its nuclear issue.

"The OIC foreign ministers statement underlined that the nuclear talks should resume without any preconditions.

"Meanwhile, it reiterated the need to make the Middle East region free from nuclear weapons and inspect the Zionist regime's nuclear installations by the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA)," it added.

In its editorial, the daily said that the Iranian officials should not give in to the US threats and that they should keep calling for the nation's legal right to uranium enrichment and development of nuclear technology.

"The US has no right to set any preconditions for us. Neither does it have the right to set a deadline and framework for us.

Rather we are the one who should set conditions for talks with any country.

"Our preconditions are that prior to any talk on the issue, the negotiators should accept that the complete nuclear technology including industrial enrichment and even development of nuclear technology is non-negotiable. Besides, the legal right of the Iranian nation can never be negotiated, because it is the red line," it added.

The editorial urged that the Iranian officials should not violate the nation's legal right, given that crossing the red line means trampling upon the nation's interests.

Another morning daily, Sedaye Edalat, wrote in its column of the day that while Europe had earlier said that it expected Iran to respond to its proposed package of incentives by mid-July, Iran has said that the response will be announced on August 22.

"The Western states once more said that if Iran rejects Europe's proposal, the US will bring up the issue at the G8 heads of state summit before mid-July and will attempt to impose sanctions against Iran.

"Earlier, President George W. Bush had said that Iran should respond within a few weeks, not a few months," said the article.

The daily referred to remarks by the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid-Reza Asefi, that Europe has set any deadline for responding to its proposal.

It added, "Iran is not expected to offer a substitute proposal.

The evidences show that Iranian officials believe that the US is not in a position to damage Iran.

The daily said that the G8 heads of states summit scheduled to be held in the Russian city of Petersburg, had earlier been specified as the deadline for Iran's response to the proposal.

"However, immediately after the remarks of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran will respond to the received proposal on August 22, Bush said that waiting for a response for such a long time is inconvenient.

"The US president believes that the Iranian officials do not need such a long time to analyze the issue to decide what is rational," concluded the daily.

2326/2322/1412