Iran to continue developing its nuclear program - Ahmadinejad
24/05/2007 15:31 TEHRAN, May 24 (RIA Novosti) - Iran will continue developing its nuclear energy sector and will not stop "even for a moment," the Iranian president said Thursday.
Since Iran resumed uranium enrichment in January 2006, the country has been the focus of international concerns, as some Western countries, particularly the U.S., suspect Tehran is pursuing a covert weapons program. But Tehran has consistently claimed it needs nuclear power for civilian power generation and is fully entitled to its own nuclear program.
"The main task of our enemies is to prevent Iran from acquiring civilian-use nuclear technologies," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. "They [the enemies] wish to undermine the basics of our government, which is why if we stop even for a moment they will achieve their purpose."
He also said that in his opinion his country's enemies want to play down Iran's role in the international arena for fear that Tehran will gain power after it acquires nuclear technologies.
On Wednesday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), presented a report that said Iran has continued to ignore the demands of the UN Security Council to halt its uranium enrichment and has continued working on nuclear projects.
The report could trigger a new wave of sanctions against Iran, which will be the third since penalties were first introduced against it in December 2006.
ElBaradei said earlier this year that it will take between four and eight years for Iran to produce a nuclear bomb if it maintains the current pace of nuclear development.
On April 19, Ahmadinejad said that Iran had mastered industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel, giving up a research-level program. Recent reports said Tehran was already running 1,600 uranium enrichment centrifuges in its Natanz underground complex.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
