Posted on 02/20/2007 10:47:07 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday said his country was ready to stop its enrichment program and return to talks provided Western nations also stopped their own. Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in northern Iran one day ahead of a U.N. Security Council deadline that it was no problem for his country to stop, but that "fair talks" demanded a similar gesture from the West.
"That ... we shut down our nuclear fuel cycle program to let talks begin. It's no problem. But justice demands that those who want to hold talks with us shut down their nuclear fuel cycle program too. Then, we can hold dialogue under a fair atmosphere," Ahmadinejad said.
The White House dismissed Ahmadinejad's call.
"Do you believe that's a serious offer?" White House press secretary Tony Snow asked. "It's pretty clear that the international community has said to the Iranians, `You can have nuclear power but we don't want you to have the ability to build nuclear weapons.' And that is an offer we continue to make."
The Security Council has set Wednesday as a deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment or face further economic sanctions.
Iran has long insisted that it will not stop its nuclear activities as a condition for negotiations to start.
"The condition they set for talks is a condition that deprives us of our rights," Ahmadinejad said of the United States and its Western allies. "We have never been after confrontation and tension. We have always been for dialogue but dialogue under fair conditions."
Ahmadinejad's speech was unusually conciliatory, avoiding fiery denunciations of the West.
"We are for talks but they have to be fair negotiations. That means, both sides hold talks under equal conditions," he said.
He added, however, that it was unacceptable for countries to demand that Iran stop its nuclear activities without reciprocity.
"We say how is it that your (nuclear fuel) production facilities work 24 hours a day, but you feel threatened by our newly established complex and we need to shut it down for talks," he asked.
Iran has rejected the sanctions as "illegal" and said it would not give up its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel.
The United States and several of its Western allies believe that Iran is using its nuclear program to produce an atomic weapon - charges Iran denies, saying its aim is to generate electricity.
Enriched to a low level, uranium is used to produce nuclear fuel but further enrichment makes it suitable for use in building an atomic bomb.
Ahmadinejad said Iran would not give in to coercion, and warned the U.S. and its allies that they would fail to force it into giving up its nuclear program.
"If you want to speak from the position of power and make use of the oppressing leverage of some international institutions, you have to know the you will fail against the unity and resistance of the Iranian nation," he said.
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They shpuld give up the nuke program, with no strings attached.
Otherwise, we nuke them.
Just send Carter and Albright there -- they can handle it.
See above link for a related story.
Oh, yes, and let's hope Iran's good buddy, France, which receives 78% of their national electricity supply from 59 nuclear power plants (and plans to build another one) takes his warning to heart.
If the world media spent as much time condemning Iran's sabre rattling and drive for a nuclear capability as they do giving Ahmadjihad a megaphone and free PR, we might get somewhere.
********************************AN EXCERPT******************************
WASHINGTON: The White House has scoffed at comments from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has offered to suspend uranium enrichment work if Western countries do the same.
"Do you believe that's a serious offer?" White House spokesman Tony Snow said when asked about Ahmadinejad's comments earlier Tuesday.
France is good buddies with Iran? On what planet?
You don't suppose this change of attitude has anything to do with the consessions North Korea wrangled from us last week, do you?
It looks like El Baradei and him are in cahoots, for just the other day an article was posted here in which EB characterized the West as hypocritical for having nukes and not allowing others to possess them.
Is this what you call dialogue?
[Iranian President Ahmadinejad at an emergency meeting of the 57 Muslim member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia] the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime.
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday the solution to the Middle East crisis is to destroy Israel. In a speech during an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called Israel a "countefeit and illegitimate regime that cannot survive", in a live broadcast on state television. "The Zionist regime is counterfeit and illegitimate and cannot survive," he said in a spech to a crowd in the town of Islamshahr in southwestern Tehran.
Ahmadinejad, who has a history of similarly fiery rhetoric, said Israel no longer had any reason to exist and would soon disappear. "This regime, thanks to God, has lost the reason for its existence," he said. "Efforts to stabilize this fake (Israeli) regime, by the grace of God, have completely failed . . . You should believe that this regime is disappearing," he said.
Ahamadingyjob is stalling. He's trying the NK strategy; call for talks, promise anything, keep on working.
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