In a speech at a gathering of the regime’s foreign policy officials on Wednesday March 15, the mullahs’ Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, emphasized that the nuclear program will continue unabatedly, rejecting any compromise on the subject.
“The nuclear program is a great national desire and it is a natural right of the Iranian people and the Islamic Republic will consider any retreat in this regard as undercutting the country’s independence, which would have enormous ramifications for the Iranian nation,” Khamanei said.
He also recalled the regime’s vulnerability and the irreparable damage it would suffer from any retreat. “Any retreat at this juncture would be followed by a chain reaction of pressures and other retreats,” he added while concluding, “Thus, this path is irreversible.”
Khamanei’s chief advisor, Ali Akbar Velayati, said last year, "if we take one step back on the nuclear issue, we will have to retreat all the way back to our overthrow."
Khamanei’s speech underscores the need for firmness and expeditious action on the part of the international community in dealing with the regimes’ nuclear program as well as the need to impose comprehensive sanctions by the Security Council.
On the eve of the Security Council’s meeting, the Iranian Resistance reiterates that any delay and hesitation in imposing sanctions against the mullahs’ regime for whatever reason would only provide more time to the regime to acquire nuclear weapons.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
March 17, 2006
