The National Nuclear Energy Day in Iran: Ahmadinejad Officially Announces Iran As an Atomic Fuel Manufacturer to the Industrial Levels

Monday 9th of April was the national nuclear energy day in Iran.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said in an speech held to honor the occasion: “The great Iranian nation, which for past centuries has been a pioneer of science, will not allow some bullying powers to put obstacles in its path of progress by influencing the international community. We will go on to reach the summits. With great honor, I declare that as of today, our dear country has joined the countries that produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale.”

Also head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Reza Aqazadeh, said: “Installation of centrifuges will continue steadily until we have 50,000 operating. There is no way back.”

Nuclear expert, David Albright, told CFR: “I think Iran lowered the bar of what is industrial scale, even by its own definition, and then declared victory.”

So far, the Iranian government’s suspicious attitude has almost convinced the western countries that it intends to develop nuclear warheads.

UN International Atomic Energy Agency said that, “Iran would need four to six years to construct a nuclear weapon, which leaves sufficient time for a continuation of negotiations and convincing Iran to abandon its nuclear programme.”

U.N. nuclear inspectors have said that, “Iran currently has two cascades of 164 centrifuges each operating at an aboveground portion of the Natanz facility in central Iran. The two cascades have produced small quantities of non-weapons grade enriched uranium.”

But the Iranian officials, as expected, deny having any unpeaceful intentions behind the country's nuclear development activities. Interestingly, they also keep insisting that the Gulf countries, too, believe in their nuclear ambitions' peacefulness, which provenly has no truth in it.

Deputy foreign minister for economic affairs of Iran, Alireza Shaikhattar, told Gulf News that, “Gulf countries know we are not building any nuclear weapons. They rather fear Bushehr plant (currently under construction) may cause an environmental disaster. But we invite them to visit us and to carry out investigations and inspections of our facilities.”

“Our nuclear plant at Bushehr would have the best available safety standards. We are in search of peaceful and safe nuclear energy, and we are ready to make the Gulf countries or any other country confident by allowing access to the nuclear facilities. Unlike North Korea, we have not come out of the Non Proliferation Treaty. The United States is making a false case against us,” he continued.

“More sanctions would only hike oil prices with negative consequences for all. The United States is building a case against us, but it seems not to be aware of our capabilities and potential. We are an independent country in many regards, we produce everything internally and we can continue to develop our nuclear technology without any help. Our energy demand grows by more than 10 per cent per year. It is a matter of national interest and economic development,” Shaikhattar told Gulf News.

“Sanctions would not affect us seriously. This is why they are trying to paralyse our banking and financial system. But Iran has strong historical ties with financial and monetary institutions all over the world. They must consider the volume and capacity of our economy. They cannot ignore Iran,” he added.

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said: “We are ready to reach understanding with the Westerners through a corridor of real negotiations in the current situation, in which Iran’s nuclear activities have been concluded. The understanding regards assuring the other party about the peacefulness of Iran’s nuclear activities. But we do not give in our rights,” state television quoted him as saying.

Larijani added that, “Iran’s neighbors in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) should actually be glad about Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme because they can share technology with it. Iran and the Gulf countries should put aside their historical disputes and cooperate following the model of the European Union.”

Head of the Strategic Research Centre in Iran, Hasan Rowhani, called for the creation of the Arabian Gulf Security and Cooperation Organization comprising GCC, Iran and Iraq.

Retired Army General and formerly head of the U.S. Southern Command, Barry McCaffrey, said that, “It is too late to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and Saudi Arabia is likely to follow. For sure, if the Persian Shia bomb becomes a dominant factor in the security of the Middle East, there will be a Sunni-Arab bomb to counter it.”

“The sad part is, they (the Iranians) are not going to be any safer. The region will be less stable, and they will be acutely at greater risk,” he said. If Tehran were to threaten the U.S. with a nuclear attack, it should expect the severest possible response, he added.

In that pastt few days, there have been many different and sometimes entirely opposite solutions suggested in some the U.S.’s most credible newspapers, in order to prevent the Iranian government from progressing in their suspicious nuclear development activities.

Wrote Max Boot in the Los Angeles Times : “The United States would be perfectly justified in hitting Iran now, before it acquires nuclear weapons.”

Suggested Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker that, “A clandestine plan has been in place for over a year now to launch air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.”

But as Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy advises, “Squeezing Iran financially remains the most attractive option.”

CFR’s Ray Takeyh and Vali Nasr, wrote in the New York Times, “Washington adopt a three-prong strategy: Ending its provocative naval deployments in the Persian Gulf, easing its efforts to get European and Asian banks to divest from Iran, and inviting Iranian representatives to all regional and international conferences dealing with the Middle East.”

Recently, Russia has accepted one of the Iranian superior officials, General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, despite the UN's lately established resolution on prohibition of hosting the Iranian high ranking officials. Russia is known to be helping Iran with its nuclear projects, specifically for the gigantic financial interests that they have got in it.

The Iranian deputy interior minister for security affairs, General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, was quoted on the state TV Web site as saying that “My six-day journey to Moscow, which ended Monday, showed the ineffectiveness of the resolution.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Andrei Krivtsov, confirmed that Zolqadr visited Russia. He told The Associated Press that, “the resolution does not prohibit visits by the listed individuals, instead calling for heightened vigilance and attention, and this vigilance is directed first of all at people who are directly related to nuclear programs.”

The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Sean McCormack, said: “What we are looking for are reasonable Iranian leaders who view the cost-benefit calculation and see that it is not to the benefit of the Iranian people to continue to pursue the course on which they find themselves.”