vincent Posted May 4, 2005 Share Posted May 4, 2005 UNITED NATIONS ? A defiant Iran said yesterday that it is determined to hold on to all of its nuclear program, including uranium enrichment, and lashed out at the United States for trying to limit its efforts. At a United Nations conference on the future of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi also accused the United States and Israel of posing the greatest threat to international security with their arsenals of nuclear weapons. Israel, which neither admits nor denies having the bomb, is estimated to have 200 warheads. The United States has about 10,000. Kharrazi's comments heightened tensions over the nuclear issue as officials in Iran indicated they were ready to end a suspension of some of their nuclear programs. "We will definitely restart some activities," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said. He didn't specify which operations would resume or when but added that uranium enrichment "will remain the last option." European officials reacted cautiously, suggesting the comments had more to do with Iranian domestic politics than with a desire to break off negotiations with Europe. But one senior European official said that if Iran begins uranium enrichment ? processing uranium gas through centrifuges to produce either fuel for nuclear power or the stuff of atom bombs ? it is likely that Britain, France and Germany will consider negotiations they have pursued for years with Iran terminated. Rising tensions about Iran and North Korea, which has said it has nuclear weapons, dominated the opening of a monthlong U.N.-sponsored conference on the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the cornerstone of atomic-disarmament pacts. Under the 35-year-old treaty, states without nuclear weapons pledge not to pursue them in exchange for a commitment by five nuclear powers ? the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China ? to move toward nuclear disarmament. Three other nuclear states ? Israel, India and Pakistan ? remain outside the treaty. The treaty is reviewed every five years at conferences whose consensus positions give valuable political support to nonproliferation initiatives. The United States on Monday pressed the 188 attending nations to ensure Iran and North Korea are denied peaceful nuclear-energy benefits because they had violated the treaty. The Bush administration and its European allies share the goal of keeping Iran from acquiring the ability to produce nuclear weapons but have taken different approaches to head off that possibility. After revelations three years ago that Iran had secretly operated a nuclear program for nearly 20 years, the United States decided against engaging Iran in talks, instead taking a hard line. However, its efforts to isolate Iran and haul it before the United Nations Security Council for possible punitive action failed because of a lack of international support. President Bush switched tactics in February, agreeing to support the European negotiating effort but not join it directly. The countries have been trying to get Iran to permanently abandon enrichment in exchange for economic and political incentives. U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier assured Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a meeting yesterday in Washington that if Iran makes good on its promises, France would support taking the matter to the Security Council to discuss possible sanctions, a move the Bush administration has been pushing for and the Iranians had hoped to avoid. Barnier also said France thought a showdown could be avoided. But one U.S. official said the administration began working yesterday on options for Security Council action, which could include warnings to Iran or the threat of economic sanctions if the nuclear program continues. Under the terms of the nuclear treaty, countries that forgo nuclear weapons are eligible for sensitive nuclear technology as long as it is used for peaceful energy programs. Iran maintains that it is adhering to that arrangement, but the Bush administration said Monday that Iran should not be allowed to benefit from it any longer because it spent 18 years building nuclear facilities in secret. Iran's main nuclear site was exposed by a dissident group in 2002, fueling suspicions about the Islamic republic's true intentions and setting off a two-year investigation by U.N. inspectors. The inspectors said they found no proof Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. But the Bush administration hasn't accepted those findings or Iran's claims. "The only way to really satisfy and reassure the world that they're not going to be a nuclear threat is to eliminate those programs," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday. Kharrazi, who chose to deliver his speech to the nuclear conference in English, rather than his native Farsi, said that wouldn't happen. Iran is "determined to pursue all legal areas of nuclear technology, including enrichment, exclusively for peaceful purposes," he said. It is wrong, Kharrazi said, to limit "access to peaceful nuclear technology to an exclusive club of technologically advanced states under the pretext of nonproliferation." The United States, pointing to Iran's huge oil reserves and initial efforts to conceal its enrichment activities, questions Iran's need to develop nuclear power. Iranians have been seeking ways to hold on to nuclear technology. The country suggested last week it be allowed to keep 3,000 centrifuges, which would give Iran the capability to enrich large quantities of uranium. As part of such an arrangement, Iran would operate the centrifuge cascade under 24-hour surveillance by U.N. inspectors. Seattletimes.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jamesbmarshall Subscriber¹ Posted May 4, 2005 Subscriber¹ Share Posted May 4, 2005 Interesting. If the report is correct, I didn't realised USA had some many warheads! Although I don't think about it on a day to day basis, it's quite scary to think that the world is still in talks about getting rid of military nuclear material - and that countries like North Korea are getting so wound up and secretive over it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincent Posted May 5, 2005 Author Share Posted May 5, 2005 I'd trust the US more with Nukes than i would a country like Iran ;) if that makes sense. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PseudoRandomDragon Posted May 5, 2005 Share Posted May 5, 2005 Nice that Nuclear Disarment allows us to reduce our nuclear power to being able to destroy the world 500 times over rather than 2000 times over. And if we go to war in Iran, oh boy, theres gunna be a draft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreAming in DigITal Posted May 7, 2005 Share Posted May 7, 2005 yea...The US also has 18 (i think?) nuclear subs constantly traveling the world with enough nukes to destroy the entire world. Pretty scary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
o_87 Posted May 7, 2005 Share Posted May 7, 2005 Nice that Nuclear Disarment allows us to reduce our nuclear power to being able to destroy the world 500 times over rather than 2000 times over.And if we go to war in Iran, oh boy, theres gunna be a draft. 585877722[/snapback] Yep, the US will have to either get out of Afghanistan or Iraq, maybe both to be able to launch a full scale attack on Iran. The army is just spread out too thin right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaZurk Posted May 7, 2005 Share Posted May 7, 2005 Yep, the US will have to either get out of Afghanistan or Iraq, maybe both to be able to launch a full scale attack on Iran. The army is just spread out too thin right now. 585886039[/snapback] Funny how we have a Canadian talking Military might.. ohh fear our maple syrup! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Derf Veteran Posted May 8, 2005 Veteran Share Posted May 8, 2005 May 8, 2005. 12:08 PM Iran defies nuclear limitations ALI AKBAR DAREINI ASSOCIATED PRESS TEHRAN, Iran -Iranian hardliners on Sunday called for an end to nuclear negotiations with European powers and said they opposed any deal imposing limitations on Iran's nuclear program. But Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran will remain committed to talks with Europeans despite a lack of progress. Asefi said Iran has decided to resume certain nuclear activities it voluntarily suspended in November, but actual uranium enrichment ? injecting uranium gas into centrifuges ? will remain suspended for now despite hardline calls for its resumption. Enriched uranium can be used to produce warheads, but it also can be used to make electricity, which Iranian officials insist is the sole purpose of their nuclear program. Washington accuses Tehran of trying to build nuclear weapons. Iranian state-run radio quoted Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the hardline head of parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy committee, as saying Iran should end its suspension of uranium enrichment and that continued nuclear talks with European countries would be a waste of time. "Iran has taken the necessary steps to build confidence and show transparency," Boroujerdi was quoted as saying. "The time has come to end the voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment." France, Britain and Germany, acting on behalf of the 25-country European Union, are offering Iran economic incentives in return for guarantees that Tehran will not use its nuclear program to make weapons. Last month's Iranian-European talks yielded no results. Boroujerdi reportedly said more talks with the "three European powers will have no outcome other than being a waste of time." "France, Britain and Germany have shown that they don't have the necessary capacity and powers to reach an understanding with the Islamic Republic of Iran," he added. Sunday's hardline Jomuri-e-Eslami newspaper said details of a deal between Iran and the Europeans allegedly under study was tantamount to "selling Iran's independence." The daily claimed the deal will let Iran operate 3,000 centrifuges in Natanz in return for strict supervision of the facility and approval of the additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty allowing intrusive inspections of Iran's facilities by experts from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. Asefi, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, rejected the reported deal as media speculation. Asefi said Iran won't restart actual uranium enrichment, but it has decided to resume some nuclear enrichment-related activities at its uranium conversion facility in Isfahan, central Iran. "Isfahan facility carries out various activities. What activity we are going to resume or at which stage is under study," he told reporters at a press conference. "It will be either producing UF-4 or UF-6. It will be one of them." UF-4 and UF-6 are the processed form of uranium, the feedstock for enrichment. Iran agreed to suspend actual enrichment at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant in 2003 to avoid UN Security Council referral for possible sanctions. To bolster international confidence, Tehran in late 2004 suspended other uranium enrichment-related activities including reprocessing activities at its uranium conversion facility in Isfahan and building centrifuges to enrich uranium. Natanz and Isfahan house the heart of Iran's nuclear program. The Isfahan conversion facility reprocesses uranium ore concentrate into gas, which is taken to Natanz and fed into centrifuges for enrichment. Dissatisfied with lack of progress at the talks, Iran's reformist administration of President Mohammad Khatami has come under increasing pressures to resume nuclear work. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...id=968332188492 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revvo Posted May 8, 2005 Share Posted May 8, 2005 The american goverment is filled of douchebags. Iran simply wants nuclear power because it's clean and produces much more energy than coal/oil and here, we have the U.S, a country testing all sorts of firepower from lasers attatched to Boeings to owning up to and over 10 000 warheads. The U.S is the one always preparing for the next war with its anti-missile systems and nuclear subs and carriers travelling all over the world. Funny enough, look at this quote from the wikipedia article: In 2003, the US rejected Russian proposals to further reduce both nation's nuclear stockpiles to 1,500 eachYou can see right there that the U.S doesn't want to be equal with another nation, even though 1,500 is still a ****load.Then there's that quote The United States, pointing to Iran's huge oil reserves and initial efforts to conceal its enrichment activities, questions Iran's need to develop nuclear power.Tehran, Iran's capital is incredibly polluted and it would make great use of nuclear power since it's very clean but apparently, the U.S (goverment) thinks "You have plenty of oil, use it, u don't need something better". The Iranians on neowin will agree with me on this one because they probably know how polluted cities like Tehran are.Besides, Russia is helping the Iranians and Putin said several times that Russia will only support Iran as long as they intend to use nuclear power for peaceful things e.g energy. I _think_ we can trust Russia. Maybe the U.S should concentrate more on North Korea because they are a real threat, one probably very hard to deal with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starcom826 Posted May 9, 2005 Share Posted May 9, 2005 The american goverment is filled of douchebags.Iran simply wants nuclear power because it's clean and produces much more energy than coal/oil and here, we have the U.S, a country testing all sorts of firepower from lasers attatched to Boeings to owning up to and over 10 000 warheads. The U.S is the one always preparing for the next war with its anti-missile systems and nuclear subs and carriers travelling all over the world. Funny enough, look at this quote from the wikipedia article: You can see right there that the U.S doesn't want to be equal with another nation, even though 1,500 is still a ****load. Then there's that quote Tehran, Iran's capital is incredibly polluted and it would make great use of nuclear power since it's very clean but apparently, the U.S (goverment) thinks "You have plenty of oil, use it, u don't need something better". The Iranians on neowin will agree with me on this one because they probably know how polluted cities like Tehran are. Besides, Russia is helping the Iranians and Putin said several times that Russia will only support Iran as long as they intend to use nuclear power for peaceful things e.g energy. I _think_ we can trust Russia. Maybe the U.S should concentrate more on North Korea because they are a real threat, one probably very hard to deal with. 585891131[/snapback] The way I see it, all the other Western countries have it great. Their governments can sit back and relax knowing full well that anything that they might otherwise have to address, they can just have the Americans do for them and have the U.S. government take all the flak. They can also sit around and let the U.S. spend all the money on defense knowing that the U.S. will be forced to come to their aid if anything ever were to happen to them. And of course the U.S. doesn't want to be equal with any other nation. NO ONE is like that. Not one government on the earth seeks to handicap themselves in order to level the playing field on anything. This is pretty much just anti-American trash talk because although you won't want to believe it, the EU, UN and IAEA have tried to stop the nuclear program and it hasn't worked. Iran has been given the option of just recieving the technology without even having to research it. So it will have its clean and nice nuclear power. Unfortunately for your argument, they rejected it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axon Posted May 9, 2005 Share Posted May 9, 2005 Funny how we have a Canadian talking Military might.. ohh fear our maple syrup! 585887043[/snapback] You better start talking nice or we'll cut off that flow of Maple Syrup!! :devil: I too would trust the US to be more responsible with nuclear warheads than Iran. But that trust sits on a sliding scale. -Ax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curme Posted May 9, 2005 Share Posted May 9, 2005 Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz helped Iran try to get enriched uranium during the Ford administration, now they are concerned about it? Just like with Saddam, these guys just create work for themselves. An example: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Mar26.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaZurk Posted May 9, 2005 Share Posted May 9, 2005 ...double post fixed, sorry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaZurk Posted May 9, 2005 Share Posted May 9, 2005 You better start talking nice or we'll cut off that flow of Maple Syrup!! :devil:I too would trust the US to be more responsible with nuclear warheads than Iran. But that trust sits on a sliding scale. -Ax 585893980[/snapback] No No No!!!!!! Cutting hockey I can take but not the syrup no!!!!!! :) By the way Vancouver, BC is beautiful Me 5 months ago there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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