On August 8, U.S. national security advisor Condoleezza Rice said on the NBC TV program “Meet the Press” that Washington “cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon” and that it would press the IAEA to make “a very strong statement” at its upcoming meeting in September.A few days earlier, U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell said that it was “more and more likely” that Washington would press the IAEA to refer Iran’s nuclear program to the UN Security Council as a possible prelude to imposing some combination of sanctions.

These statements followed a meeting in late July, where British, French, and German officials demanded that Tehran take steps to back away from its development of nuclear power. In response, the Iranian government announced July 30 that it would resume construction of parts for centrifuges used in the production of nuclear energy, the Associated Press reported. Tehran said it was doing this because the three European governments had not fulfilled promises to get the agreement of the IAEA to close its investigation into Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Tehran says it needs to develop nuclear power-generating technology to help meet the country’s growing demand for electricity and to spur economic development. The government estimates that it needs to generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity from nuclear power plants by 2022 to meet the growing energy demands of a country of 65 million.

Washington is seeking to block this program, claiming that it is a cover for Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s UN ambassador, said that if the IAEA took Tehran to the Security Council, then the Iranian government could not be expected to “cooperate unilaterally” with the agency, the Financial Times reported.

Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi said his government had not resumed uranium enrichment. “We still continue suspension on uranium enrichment,” Kharrazi said. “But we are not committed to another agreement with them [London, Paris, and Berlin] on not building centrifuges.” Centrifuges are used to make uranium hexafluoride, which can be enriched to low levels for power generation, or to high levels for nuclear weapons.

Last October, under heavy pressure from the British, French, and German governments, Tehran agreed to allow unannounced inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities. These governments pressed for the concessions from Tehran as an alternative to more aggressive moves by Washington.

As show of “good faith” Iran announced that it would temporarily suspend programs to enrich uranium. In exchange, the three European governments gave Tehran assurances that they would not allow U.S. allegations of Iranian violations of the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to be referred to the Security Council. They also promised to ease Tehran’s access to nuclear technology.

Government officials in Israel have made statements indicating that they make carry out an “Osirak solution,” that is, launch a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, if Washington does not. In 1981 Tel Aviv launched a missile strike that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, claiming it was acting in self-defense against the threat of Iraq developing nuclear weapons.

Iran is the “biggest danger to the existence of Israel,” said Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. “Israel will not allow Iran to be equipped with a nuclear weapon.”

Reuters news agency reported August 11, “Amid media speculation that Israel may try to halt Iran’s nuclear program by carrying out air strikes on some atomic facilities in Iran, Iranian officials have been quick to stress that Tehran would retaliate promptly and strongly to any such attack.”

Iranian defense minister Ali Shamkhani said August 4 that it had carried out a field test of the latest version of its Shihab-3 medium-range ballistic missile, saying this was in response to Tel Aviv’s moves to boost its antimissile capability.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home