Nuclear row: Iran warns of oil crisis
Saturday 05 March 2005, 16:58 Makka Time, 13:58 GMT
EU states are encouraging Iran to drop its N-fuel programme
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Iran's top nuclear official has warned the US and Europe of the danger
of an oil crisis if Tehran is sent before the UN Security Council over
its nuclear programme.
Tehran has argued that it wants to enrich uranium to generate atomic
energy purely for civilian use, and argues such work is authorised by
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Hasan Rowhani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator whose country is the
second largest oil producer in Opec, said: "The first to suffer will
be Europe and the United States themselves, this would cause problems
for the regional energy market, for the European economy and even more
so for the United States."
Iran reiterated it intended to use enriched uranium only in power
stations, but Washington insists Tehran is making fuel for atomic
warheads.
"If the Americans succeed in referring Iran's case to the Security
Council, Iran will immediately suspend all its voluntary
confidence-building measures," Rowhani said.
"If US pressure doesn't prevent it, I think we will manage to reach an
agreement with the Europeans because they don't want to deprive the
Iranian people of their right and will try to act fairly," Rowhani
said.
Economic incentives
EU states are encouraging Iran to drop its fuel programme in return
for economic incentives.
Rowhani, who visited the German and French capitals for talks on the
issue at the end of February, has however refused to put an end to
uranium enrichment.
Rowhani: Europe doesn't want to
deprive Iranians of their right
"We cannot have and we will not have negotiations with the Europeans
if what they want is an end" to uranium enrichment," he said.
"We will not continue the talks for one single minute, we have made it
very clear to Paris and Berlin. Parliamentarians may even come up with
a harder decision."
Many conservative parliamentarians have called for Iran to pull out of
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Snap inspections
In the shorter term they have threatened that Iran will not ratify the
Additional Protocol to the NPT, which permits snap UN inspections of
nuclear sites.
"The security and stability of the region would become a problem,"
Rohani who is secretary-general of Iran's Supreme National Security
Council, said.
"This would be a particular problem for the United States because it
has a lot of troops and equipment in the region and is in fact our
imposed neighbour."
"This would be a particular problem for the United States because it
has a lot of troops and equipment in the region and is in fact our
imposed neighbour"
Hasan Rowhani,
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator
Iran has often said that it feels besieged by the United States, which
has troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and has conducted military
exercises in the Caspian Sea.
Objective guarantee
But Rowhani still held out hope that talks with Europeans could pay
dividends, saying Iran had given the Europeans "an objective
guarantee" that it was not seeking arms.
"The ball is in the Europeans' court right now," he said, adding Iran
would make the terms of its guarantee public if the Europeans rejected
it.
He said any European position asking for an end to the fuel cycle -
enriching uranium to make nuclear fuel - as an objective guarantee,
was unacceptable.
"My feeling is that Berlin and Paris have accepted the
middle-of-the-road approach," he continued.
Iran-EU talks continue in Geneva next week.
AFP
"Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one,some bigger than others"
.
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