nuclear-news

Iran seeking to deflect international pressure

Ahmadinejad: give Iran uranium supplies and we’ll stop enriching President’s remarks appear designed to deflect international pressure over country’s nuclear programme   Ian Black,   guardian.co.uk,  20 August 2010 Iran would stop enriching uranium to a high grade if it was assured of the supplies it needed for a research reactor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on the eve of the inauguration of the country’s first nuclear power plant.His remarks came as the US reportedly told Israel it believes Iran is still a year away from being able to build a nuclear weapon – probably lessening the chances of a pre-emptive military strike that could ignite war across the Middle East.

Ahmadinejad’s comments to a Japanese newspaper appeared designed to deflect international pressure over Iran’s nuclear programme. “We promise to stop enriching uranium to 20% purity if we are ensured fuel supply,” he was quoted as saying by the Yomiuri Shimbun.

But he rejected calls by the UN security council for Iran to halt all enrichment, not just to the higher level required to build weapons. “We have a right to enrich uranium,” he said. “We have never initiated war or wanted nuclear bombs.”

Earlier this week Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that his country would not engage in nuclear talks with the US unless sanctions were lifted and military threats ended………….

Iran will mark a significant advance today when it inaugurates the Bushehr nuclear power station on the Gulf coast. The plant poses little proliferation risk since Russia is supplying the enriched uranium for the reactor and will take away spent fuel that could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium.

The US, Britain and other western countries all insist Iran has the right to generate nuclear energy under the NPT and hope to use that to coax it away from any non-peaceful work. Ahmadinejad: give Iran uranium supplies and we’ll stop enriching | World news | The Guardian

August 21, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, politics international | AUSTRALIA, nuclear weapons