– We alleviated many shortcomings, did not suspend Isfahan project at all, started it up industrially and produced several tons of UF6. We did not suspend work in Arak and today we have significant number of centrifuges ready for use
– The nuclear crisis began in August 2002 because of Mojahedin actions
– Fuel cycle is a red line, upon which regime leaders and experts agree
– NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee Chair: Two-year talks only helped mullahs inch closer to nuclear bomb. EU-3 must abandon the talks immediately, refer Iran’s nuclear file to the Security Council.
– We alleviated many shortcomings, did not suspend Isfahan project at all, started it up industrially and produced several tons of UF6. We did not suspend work in Arak and today we have significant number of centrifuges ready for use
– The nuclear crisis began in August 2002 because of Mojahedin actions
– Fuel cycle is a red line, upon which regime leaders and experts agree
– NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee Chair: Two-year talks only helped mullahs inch closer to nuclear bomb. EU-3 must abandon the talks immediately, refer Iran’s nuclear file to the Security Council.
In an interview with the Supreme Leader’s mouthpiece, daily Kayhan, Hassan Rowhani, Secretary for the Supreme National Security Council and Tehran’s nuclear point man in talks with the European Union, acknowledged that the most important benefit of talks with the EU-3 was to buy time to complete the nuclear projects. He said, “In the past 21 months, the Islamic Republic has achieved brilliant results in technical, legal, political, propaganda and national security spheres.”
He added that in the course of negotiations, the regime had obtained the biggest concessions in the security arena, namely the imposition of restrictions on the Mojahedin. “A clear example of that is contained in the Paris Accord, in which Iran and Europe pledged to cooperate in the fight against terrorism,” the representative of the world’s only terror-sponsoring regime boasted.
Rowhani emphasized, “The crisis started back in August 2002, when the Monafeqin [Mojahedin] said Iran is building nuclear weapons in three secret sites. The Islamic Republic of Iran invited Mr. ElBaradei to come to Iran and visit the nuclear facilities.” At the start of the negotiations, “we had elementary success with respect to technology, that is, we had succeeded in enrichment at the laboratory level. In Arak, we had just begun. In Isfahan, we had not yet produced any UF4 or UF6. In fact, the Isfahan project did not even exist and we had a very limited number of centrifuges. Today, however, we have started up, tested the facility in Isfahan at the industrial level, and produced several tons of UF6. Today, there are a significant number of manufactured centrifuges ready for use. It may seem on the surface that we have accepted the suspension. But in reality, we have used the time to alleviate many of our shortcomings. We continued building centrifuges until the Paris Accord. After June, we doubled our efforts to make up for the suspension. We have not suspended work in Isfahan, even for a second. Arak has not been suspended at any time,” Rowhani insisted.
He added that the nuclear fuel cycle was a “red line” that could not be breached and that the regime did not forego it under any circumstance. “The decision that the fuel cycle was our red line was raised both in experts and the leaders’ meetings.”
Underscoring that before the start of negotiations, the regime was not far from being referred to the United Nations Security Council, Rowhani said, “We have postponed referral to the Security Council for at least two years.” “During the suspension period, we focused all of our capabilities on other activities. When the activities in Natanz were suspended, we devoted our energy to Isfahan. Now that Isfahan is suspended, we are working on other deficiencies. Of course, we did not engage in a lot of propaganda about this,” he said brazenly.
Rowhani said, “The environment has changed so much in the past 21 months that we could reach an understanding and an agreement in a private meeting with Mr. Chirac. The agreement did not go through only because Britain and especially the U.S. opposed it. U.S. pressure on Europe does not let us achieve results. Were it not for these pressures, we would have reached results with the Europeans much sooner.”
Mr. Mohammad Mohaddessin, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said, “Rowhani’s brazen remarks, are, before anything else, indicative of the reality that nothing has helped the murderous theocracy to inch closer to the production of a nuclear bomb than the two-year talks with the EU-3. By handing over the presidency to a Revolutionary Guardsman and a terrorist, Khamenei is trying to complete the nuclear bomb project, which is under the direction of the Revolutionary Guards Corps. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ascension will put all of the country’s resources directly at the disposal of this project.”
“Time has come to the EU-3 to immediately abandon these talks to prevent the world’s most dangerous terror sponsor from obtaining the world’s most dangerous weapons and refer Tehran’s nuclear file to the Security Council,” Mohaddessin added.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 24, 2005