Iran will resume enriching uranium after a maximum of six months, powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani vowed on Friday, reaffirming that Tehran’s freeze on nuclear fuel cycle work is only temporary.
”The last word is after this period, which I do not assume will exceed six months … we must seriously and firmly follow enrichment programmes and use the very important advantages of nuclear technology,” he said.
”So far, we have reached the point that we accept to suspend parts of our activities for a period that was not necessary at all.
”Our negotiators have tried to shorten this period and we interpret it to be about two, three months up to six months,” the prominent cleric said at Friday prayers.
Earlier this week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spared Iran the fate of being referred to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions after Tehran agreed in a deal with Britain, France and Germany to suspend its uranium enrichment programme.
The United States accuses Iran of running a covert nuclear weapons programme, but the Islamic republic insists it only wants to enrich uranium to low levels to produce fuel for a series of atomic power stations.
Rafsanjani, the head of the Expediency Council, Iran’s final arbiter on legislation, also had sharp words for the positions of the IAEA and Western countries during negotiations over the nuclear programme.
”We should be dissatisfied with them. They owe us and have done injustice to us. Iran’s activities are [allowed] under legal rights given to all countries to use nuclear technology for non-military purposes.”
Referring to the US objection towards Iran’s access to the fuel cycle, Rafsanjani, a potential runner for Iran’s next presidential elections, said: ”They are after the free home, oil reserves and this important geographical region, which have been taken from them [by] Iran’s Islamic revolution.”
Iran is still zealously guarding its ”right” under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to have a peaceful nuclear programme, including the full fuel cycle.
Top national security official and nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani reaffirmed on Tuesday that Iran agreed to the suspension only for the duration of negotiations with the Europeans and that ”it should be a question of months and not years”.
But analysts say that while the deal averted a major international crisis over Iran’s nuclear ambitions for the time being, the fundamental problem that Iran wants its very own nuclear fuel cycle still remains unsolved. – Sapa-AFP