March 10, 2004

Iran Will Resume Uranium Enrichment

Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday that his country would resume uranium enrichment once its problems with the International Atomic Energy Agency are resolved, and warned European partners it could end nuclear cooperation if they fail to support Tehran.
[Greeeeeaaaaat. Now the mullahs are channeling Kim Jung-Il with the threats. Just what we need.--Jen]

"It's our legitimate right to enrich uranium," Kamal Kharrazi told reporters after a Cabinet meeting in the Iranian capital Tehran.

"We suspended uranium enrichment voluntarily and temporarily. Later, when our relations with the IAEA returns to normal, we will definitely resume (uranium) enrichment," Kharrazi said.

Undeclared uranium enrichment by Iran was one of the reasons behind an IAEA probe of Iran's nuclear facilities. The IAEA is holding a meeting on Iran in Vienna, at which the United States had insisted that Iran be declared in breach of its international agreements, including uranium enrichment and plutonium processing. US officials say those activities point to a nuclear weapons agenda.

The key meeting of the UN atomic agency moved closer to agreement Wednesday after the United States and key European powers agreed to praise Tehran's increased openness about its nuclear programs but criticize it for continuing to hide some suspicious activities.

In the draft, United States compromised with Britain, France and Germany to tone down criticism of Iran's continued nuclear secrecy and give some praise of Tehran's willingness to open its programs to outside perusal.

Kharrazi also warned that Iran could end nuclear cooperation, and called on its European partners to resist US pressure at the Vienna meeting.
[...]
He [Kharrazi] warned that Iran would stop cooperating with the three nations if they fail to support Iran.
[...]
The United States insists Iran wants to make nuclear weapons and wanted the meeting to condemn it for not fully living up to pledges to reveal all past and present nuclear activities. But the Europeans wanted to focus on Iranian cooperation with the IAEA that began only after the discovery last year that Tehran had plans to enrich uranium and secretly conducted other tests with possible weapons applications over nearly two decades.
[And then there's their helpful Islamic brother A.Q. Khan with his nuclear Walmart in Pakistan.--Jen]

An enrichment program would be necessary for producing nuclear weapons, which Iran repeatedly has said is not its intent. Low enriched uranium is used as a fuel for electricity generating in nuclear power plants.

I think we all know that Iran doesn't lack for "fuel for electricity generating" without nuke plants...so that's their first lie!
I'm guessing that President Bush is letting Tony Blair have his head on this one, as he did when he backed Tone's drive to get a UN resolution passed before there was military action in Iraq, but I hope that it's only for a short time until this EUro-weasel effort inevitably fails.
It's clear to me that Iran is making nukes and isn't even trying very hard to hide it nor are they ceasing their nuclear activities, if they ever did.
For the EUroweenies' part, I smell Jacque Chirac and Dominique de VILEPin's perfidious, anti-American taint all over this "accord" with Iran which shouldn't shock us now either.
Guess those 2 Froggies want our boycott of France and things French to go on indefinitely.
Freedom fries, anyone?
I think the Iranian people would like to Super Size that order!