Iran Calls on Obama to Change Path

[Mac Seafraidh]

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran criticized United States President-elect Barack Obama for saying that it is unacceptable for Tehran to develop nuclear technology.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Mr. Obama's comment showed a pursuit of the "same wrong American policies".

Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Larijani said Obama must send the correct signal to the region to rebuild relationship.

"If the United States wants to change its standing in the region it should send good signals," he said.

Larijani said change had to be strategic.

"Obama understands that change does not only mean a change of color and superficial differences, change must also have a strategic basis. This is what is expected on the international scene, not the repetition of the mundane, repetitive statements that we have heard from his tongue these past few days," he said.

Obama ran his campaign under the slogan of 'change', and his landslide victory has fuelled hopes across the world for a new approach to US foreign policy.

But Obama changed his foreign policy stance and said during his first news conference since winning the US presidential election on Tuesday that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons was unacceptable and also that he would "respond appropriately" to a congratulatory letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Larijani said Iran's leaders had chosen to pursue the country's nuclear program "having calculated the risks" and was well aware that they would come under international pressure.

"But this was necessary for the future of Iran," he said, adding that the Islamic republic would not suspend its peaceful uranium enrichment program despite UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions against it.

Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's illegitimate calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.

Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.

Iran insists that it should continue enriching uranium because it needs to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it is building in the southwestern town of Darkhoveyn as well as its first nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr.

Iran currently suffers from an electricity shortage that has forced the country into adopting a rationing program by scheduling power outages - of up to two hours a day - across both urban and rural areas.

Iran plans to construct additional nuclear power plants to provide for the electricity needs of its growing population.

Six major powers - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States - have put forward the possibility of a package of technological, economic and political incentives if Iran suspends uranium enrichment.

Early in his election campaign, Obama said he favored unconditional direct talks with Tehran, but he has since hardened his position.

In Tehran different dailies also frowned at Obama's new stand on Iran. Kayhan headlined "Obama's men pro-Israeli," in reference to his appointment of Rahm Emanuel, a Jew, as White House chief of staff. It called him "a member of a terrorist Zionist group."

Jomhuri Islami's headline read, "Obama gives green light to the Zionist regime."

Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.

Washington's push for additional UN penalties contradicts a recent report by 16 US intelligence bodies that endorsed the civilian nature of Iran's programs. Following the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and similar reports by the IAEA head - one in November and the other one in February - which praised Iran's truthfulness about key aspects of its past nuclear activities and announced settlement of outstanding issues with Tehran, any effort to impose further sanctions on Iran seems to be completely irrational.

The February report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, praised Iran's cooperation in clearing up all of the past questions over its nuclear program, vindicating Iran's nuclear program and leaving no justification for any new UN sanctions.

The UN nuclear watchdog has so far carried out at least 14 surprise inspections of Iran's nuclear sites so far, but found nothing to support West's allegations.

Also in his latest report to the 35-nation Board of Governors, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei confirmed "the non-diversion" of nuclear material in Iran and added that the agency had found no "components of a nuclear weapon" or "related nuclear physics studies" in the country.

The IAEA report confirmed that Iran has managed to enrich uranium-235 to a level "less than 5 percent". Such a rate is consistent with the construction of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear arms production, meanwhile, requires an enrichment level of above 90 percent.

The Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog continues snap inspections of Iranian nuclear sites and has reported that all "declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities."

Mohammed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently said that Iran remains far from acquiring capabilities to develop nuclear weapons as it is still lacking the key components to produce an atomic weapon.

"They do not have even the nuclear material, the raw unenriched uranium to develop one nuclear weapon if they decide to do so," said the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency.

Many world nations have called the UN Security Council pressure against Iran unjustified, especially in the wake of recent IAEA reports, stressing that Tehran's case should be normalized and returned to the UN nuclear watchdog due to the Islamic Republic's increased cooperation with the agency.

Observers believe that the shift of policy by the White House to send William Burns - the third highest-ranking diplomat in the US - to the latest round of Iran-West talks happened after Bush's attempt to rally international pressure against Iran lost steam due to the growing international vigilance.

US President George W. Bush finished a tour of the Middle East in winter to gain the consensus of his Arab allies to unite against Iran.

But hosting officials of the regional nations dismissed Bush's allegations, describing Tehran as a good friend of their countries.

Also in an apparent reference to Washington's Middle East policy, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this month that Isolating Iran and Syria is a misguided strategy.

"Dialogue between countries in the region is better than pressure from outside," he said Thursday, delivering an opening speech at the World Economic Forum on Europe and Central Asia.

Nations in the region could likely find solutions to Middle East conflict and tensions in Iraq by working together and without external pressure, Erdogan said.

In August, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said that Ankara would not be influenced by others in its relations with neighbors. Gul described the expansion of regional ties as natural, saying that "for Turkey what other countries think is of no importance."

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8708191502

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

The funny thing is that during the Ford Administration, the US was going to give money to Iran to help them build a Nuclear Reactor for the Shah.  My how times change when a little nation called Israel enters the picture.

[Ralph Furely]

yea eh.  pretty sure America had no enemies in the mid east till that there country came about...