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Iran braces for nuclear dispute { April 17 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,938205,00.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,938205,00.html
Iran attacks US and braces for nuclear dispute
Dan De Luce in Tehran
Thursday April 17, 2003
The Guardian
The Iranian president Mohammad Khatami yesterday lashed out at America for its aggressive stance, stating that Tehran would not recognise a US-installed administration in Iraq and warning Iran would support Syria were it attacked.
"We will not recognise any administration other than an all-Iraqi government. However, we are not seeking tension or confrontation with anybody," he said.
Mr Khatami added: "The Iraqi nation will not accept any foreign rule." His comments come at a time of increasing tension for Iran, which faces pressure from Britain and the European Union over its nuclear programme amid concerns that Tehran may be close to producing a nuclear bomb.
With the end of the war in Iraq, international attention is shifting to Iran, which has denied it has a weapons programme but has so far refused to agree to a more intrusive UN inspections regime.
Western governments fear Iran no longer requires outside technical expertise to manufacture a nuclear weapon and may be planning eventually to withdraw from its international obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
The fear among some western diplomats and analysts is that the increasingly belligerent stance of Washington towards Iran and Syria may backfire and push Tehran to speed up its weapons programme. Mr Khatami yesterday made a point of rallying to Syria's side.
"Syria is on the frontline against Zionist pressures, defending the cause of the Palestinian nation, freedom and peace in the region. We will defend Syria, but it doesn't mean we will engage in military confrontation," he said.
The UN International Atomic Energy Agency has demanded unfettered access to Iran's nuclear programme to investigate declared and undeclared sites that would indicate whether Iran is attempting to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
But Iran has refused to sign up to the non-proliferation treaty's "additional protocol", drafted after the 1991 Gulf war.
Iranian officials have said they would be willing to agree to the "go anywhere" inspections regime only if trade sanctions were lifted, allowing access to technical assistance for the nuclear programme.
For the US, which has had no diplomatic relations with Iran for more than two decades, such a compromise is out of the question. Iran insists its programme is purely for peaceful purposes and is designed to meet a growing domestic demand for electricity.
But concerns in the west about Iran's nuclear ambitions were reinforced after an uranium enrichment facility was revealed last year and when Tehran announced plans to mine uranium ore and reprocess its own nuclear fuel.
Arms proliferation experts say Iran has no need for such an extensive uranium enrichment facility because Russia has agreed to provide all the fuel necessary for a nuclear power plant under construction in Bushehr.
Iran has tried to develop a nuclear programme since the 1980s but the US managed to block Tehran's attempts to find a western European partner. With Pakistan, India and Israel possessing nuclear weapons and flouting the non-proliferation treaty, conservative clerics ruling Iran may see the nuclear programme as a deterrent, analysts say.
UN inspectors have been visiting various sites for the past month, and the IAEA is due to deliver a decision in June on whether Iran has broken the non-proliferation treaty.
Since it was named last year by the US as part of the "axis of evil", along with North Korea and the former regime in Iraq, Iran has avoided any confrontation with Washington and stayed out of the war at its doorstep.
As a counter to US pressure, Iran has cultivated relations with the EU, and with Britain in particular.
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