Salehi: 10 new Iran sites, reaction to P5+1 move

Salehi: 10 new Iran sites, reaction to P5+1 move

Mon, 30 Nov 2009, Press TV

After Iran announced its plan to construct ten new enrichment plants, a senior nuclear official says the decision is a strong response to a new resolution by the UN nuclear watchdog.

“We had no plan to build many nuclear sites like [enrichment facility in the central city of] Natanz but it seems that the West do not want to comprehend Iran’s message of peace,” Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali-Akbar Salehi said.

“The West adopted an attitude toward Iran which made the Iranian government to pass the ratification on construction of ten sites similar to the Natanz enrichment facility,” he added.

Days after a new resolution by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called on Iran to halt the construction of its Fordo enrichment plant, the Iranian government on Sunday tasked the Atomic Energy Organization (AEO) with building ten more nuclear enrichment sites.

Upon the Iranian government’s decree, the AEO should begin the construction of five of the enrichment facilities over the next two months.

It should also propose locations for the remaining five enrichment plants within a two-month period.

“We have determined the location of five sites upon the president’s decree. Our enrichment sites will be constructed in the heart of mountains,” Salehi said.

He noted that each site has the potentiality to “supply fuel for a power plant as large as Bushehr power plant.”

“The five sites inside mountains will be built in a way that will be protected from any attack,” the vice-president said.

He expressed his regret that the West gave no befitted response to Iran’s confidence-building measures.

Some Western powers, spearheaded by the US, have been pressuring Iran to accept an inflexible nuclear draft deal which wants Iran’s Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) to be shipped out of the country for further enrichment and return to Iran to be used in Tehran research reactor.

Iranian officials rejected the UN proposal, first floated by the administration of US President Barack Obama, saying there are no guarantees that the country would in fact receive the fuel it requires.

Tehran says it is ready to accept the nuclear swap if it takes place within its own borders.

The order for the construction of the new sites comes as the Iranian government is expected to provide the country’s power plants with 20,000 megawatts of electricity for domestic use.

On Friday, Iran’s top nuclear envoy Ali-Asghar Soltanieh showed reaction to the new IAEA resolution, warning that the decision will only introduce tension to the “spirit of cooperation.”

Besides Brazil, some countries from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) including Indonesia and Egypt criticized the passage of the resolution.

Brazilian envoy to the IAEA, who abstained from voting to censure Iran over the construction of the Fordo enrichment plant, said that a new round of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program would be pointless.

Imposing more sanctions on Tehran “will only lead to a hardening of the Iranian position,” Ambassador Antonio Guerreiro said on Saturday.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki told journalists on Saturday: “The resolution on the Iranian nuclear dossier does not take into account its regional aspect.”

He added that the UN nuclear watchdog’s resolution should have also mentioned Israel’s nuclear arsenal and nuclear disarmament in the Middle East.

Iran’s speaker: Don’t gamble on nuclear issue

Mon, 30 Nov 2009, Press TV

Iran’s top lawmaker says Tehran is still seeking a diplomatic solution to the dispute over its nuclear energy program, criticizing the UN nuclear body over its latest resolution against the country.

“I believe there is still room for diplomacy and it is useful for them [World powers] to adopt a diplomatic option,” Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani told reporters in a Monday press conference.

“That way Iran would be able to make progress within the framework of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) while they would also be certain that Iran activities are peaceful.”

“But of course, if they choose to take a different path Iran would also adopt a different stance,” he added…

In his Monday comments, Larijani slammed the US and its allies for the lack of genuine change in their ‘carrot and tick’ policy toward Iran and described the so called ‘overtures’ they claimed to be making as “tactical actions made for their own benefit.”

Calling them “useless”, Larijani dismissed Western threats of military action or economic sanctions against Tehran and said that Iran would not waver when it came to its nuclear rights.