Posted on 02/09/2005 10:21:05 PM PST by NormsRevenge
TEHRAN/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran, in a renewed challenge to U.S. and European efforts to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear bomb, vowed on Wednesday it would never give up its nuclear program.
President Mohammad Khatami (news - web sites) also warned of "massive" consequences if it was treated unfairly over its nuclear program which Iran says is for peaceful purposes only and Washington believes is a cover for producing a bomb.
"We give our guarantee that we will not produce nuclear weapons because we're against them and do not believe they are a source of power," Khatami told foreign ambassadors in Tehran.
"But we will not give up peaceful nuclear technology."
In Washington, President Bush (news - web sites) said a nuclear-armed Iran would be "a very destabilizing force in the world" and urged the West to work together to stop this happening.
Britain, France and Germany are trying to persuade Iran to end permanently all nuclear activities which could be used to produce a bomb in return for economic and trade incentives.
While the talks go on, Iran has suspended nuclear work, including uranium enrichment which can be used to make weapons-grade fuel.
But Khatami, echoing tough comments by other Iranian officials in recent days, said Iran would never halt enrichment.
"We consider enrichment our clear right and will never give it up. We suspended it voluntarily to show our goodwill."
Washington is pressing Europe to take a tougher stance in its talks with Iran, threatening Tehran with referral to the U.N. Security Council for economic sanctions if these fail.
"The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message: Don't develop a nuclear weapon," Bush said during a meeting with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) has been reinforcing that message during a tour of Europe this week.
"(The) Iranians need to hear that if they are unwilling to take the deal, really, that the Europeans are giving ... then the Security Council referral looms," she told Fox News.
Rice said Washington had set no deadline for the EU process, and wanted to give diplomacy every chance to work.
LOSING PATIENCE
But Iran has signaled its impatience with the pace of the EU talks, and on Wednesday Iran's top nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani accused Washington of wanting the process to fail.
"I stress very clearly that despite all our patience, if we feel others are not meeting their promises, under no circumstances would we be committed to continue fulfilling ours," Khatami said.
"And we will adopt a new policy, the consequences of which are massive and would be the responsibility of those who broke their commitments," he said. Khatami did not elaborate on what those consequences might be.
But Rohani told Reuters on Sunday Iran would accelerate its drive to master nuclear technology if the United States or Israel attacked its atomic facilities. Britain, France and Germany were holding a third round of talks with Iran in Geneva this week. They so far made little headway, with Tehran insisting it has a sovereign right to a civilian nuclear program to produce electricity.
Diplomats said both the United States and Europe may even be preparing the ground for a possible failure of the talks, handing the dispute over to the U.N. Security Council.
Washington has not specifically said what sanctions should be imposed on Iran, amid concerns that any clampdown on Iranian oil exports would drive up world oil prices.
Russia and China, which along with Britain, France and the United States make up the five permanent members of the Security Council, would also be likely to oppose any sanctions on Iran.
Bush has refused to rule out military action, though Rice said this week an attack on Iran was not on the agenda for now.
And on Wednesday senior general said in Washington the U.S. military was not in a heightened state of planning on Iran.
"I'm not spending any of my time worrying about the nuclear proliferation in Iran. I haven't been called into any late-night meetings at 8 o'clock at night saying, 'Holy cow, we got to sit down and go plan for Iran,"' Air Force Lt. Gen. Lance Smith said at a Pentagon (news - web sites) briefing.
"As far as the planning efforts, we simply go through our normal mode of updating whatever war plans we have for all parts of our region," said Smith, deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command.
And I say they'll never live to see 2006.
There's your answer EU.
Now, where did I put that BunkerBuster, anyway?
"Tehran will never give up nuclear technology" "He warned of "massive" consequences if Iran was treated unfairly."
The first statement dismisses any 'Diplomatic' means for compromise.
The second statement says we're going to hurt you real bad if you cannot deal with the first statement.
What will all the dem liberal pacifist UN deferring diplomacy wackos say to that??? Most likely, "bend over".
But what we should say, is for Iran to bend over, put their heads between their legs and kiss their ass's goodbye.
Maybe we could get Joe Biden to deliver them a puckering lesson in person. ;-)
Yeah... They will be gone by early 2006
HEY MULLAHS, DON'T DIG YOUR GRAVE BY YOUR HAND!
A blockade seems the logical next step after the UN fails to act.
You cannot give you something you never had to begin with!!
Time for Israel to do the right thing here, and blast away the nukes themselves.
No... there is no way for anyone to know where everything is... that would not be the right thing to do at this time.
"We give our guarantee that we will not produce nuclear weapons because we're against them and do not believe they are a source of power," Khatami told foreign ambassadors in Tehran.
One of the most oil rich countries in the world "needs" nuclear power. Nobody has the marbles to call them bold face liars.
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