Iran ready to leave non-proliferation regime
Iran-Regional, Politics, 9/16/2003

Iran is keeping its options open in considering a move to leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as the organization set a deadline for Iran to enforce complete exposure of Iran's nuclear activities, and may leave the organization following suit of North Korea.

The official news agency IRNA reported that "President Mohammad Khatami, referring to the need for access to sciences and technologies including nuclear technology, as the nation's basic requirement, said here Monday that Iran's nuclear program is not aimed towards destructive purposes."

The report said that "In a meeting with high ranking commanders of the Islamic Revolution's Guards Corps (IRGC), the president underlined "no one can ever dissuade us from materializing such a goal, adding the US " make hue and cry without any reasonable ground, suppress others in the name of campaign against violence, take terrorist measures and occupy lands as anti-terror campaign. The Americans are known for making hue and cry just as their policy is based on extremism and expansionism."

The President said that "Iran doesn't intend to produce WMD, but rather favors a region and a world free from such destructive weapons. "Given that we have fallen victim to WMD, we don`t require to have access to atomic bombs. We have no intention to produce them, since it is against our principles. However, we are determined to be powerful. Power has to do with science and technology, while nuclear technology is the most advanced. We are making attempts towards reaching such a goal by depending on the capabilities and talents of the Iranian youth," he added.

He added "Our policy is based on resisting intrusion and we will not allow any malicious attempts against the Islamic Revolution as well as the Iranian nation," he concluded.

It is not clear if the Arab states will put aside fears of Iranian power and cooperate with Iran and follow suit to exit the international atomic agency that is seen to be an enforcer against countries selectively, while other countries of concern, such as Israel, who already have nuclear weapons are left alone from being harassed.

Meantime, the Jamahiriya news agency, spoke about the report by the British newspaper the Sunday Times which said that the US and the UK prevented disclosure of "the report (that) is a result of efforts made by an Anglo American team which consists of 1400 scientists and military and intelligence experts who were working in Iraq during the past four months to discover any chemical or biological weapons. But the team didn't succeed to find weapons or evidence about them." Iranian officials said the US allegations against them are mere political pretexts for hostile purposes.

Previous Stories:
  OIC foreign ministers conference opened yesterday in Tehran   (5/29/2003)
  Iran will not be subject to US pressure   (5/27/2003)
  Khatami: tour on Arab states was very important, a success   (5/19/2003)

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