http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-01/31/content_413754.htm
U.S official: Iran nuclear aims a threat
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-01-31 10:12
A senior U.S. official said Monday he was consulting Arab states in
the Persian Gulf to coordinate policies in light of the perceived
threat of Iran's nuclear ambitions.
John Bolton, the State Department's top international security
official, said countries in the region were "well aware" of the threat
posed by Iran, which maintains its nuclear activities are for peaceful
energy purposes.
US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International
Security, John Bolton, seen in 2004, said that the Iranian nuclear
programme was a major security threat for Washington's allies in the
Middle East. [AFP/File]
"Their repeated support for terrorism makes it particularly dangerous
if they were to acquire a nuclear weapon," Bolton told reporters.
"Whether they would use it directly as the government of Iran or
whether they would transfer it to a terrorist group leaves us very
concerned," said Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and
international security.
Bolton said he has explained to leaders in the Gulf America's stance
on the "Iranian problem and how we've been dealing in the past and how
we proposed to deal with in the future."
The United States alleges that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at
producing weapons. Earlier this month, US President Bush reaffirmed
his support for a diplomatic settlement of Iran's nuclear program but
said he would not take any option off the table, including a possible
military strike.
Bolton, who arrived here from Kuwait, also was scheduled to visit the
United Arab Emirates.
"There are a series of things that we have discussed in which
additional diplomatic pressure can be put on Iran to prevent them from
acquiring the necessary material and technology that they need for
their nuclear weapons program," he said.
Bolton stressed that the United States advocated a Middle East free of
nuclear weapons and dismissed the possibility of nuclear threats from
Israel.
"Israel has a particularly close relationship with the United States
and I think that more than anything else is what convinces us that
there is no threat from use of Israeli nuclear weapons," Bolton said.
The United States has rebuffed pleas to join a European diplomatic
drive to persuade Iran to give up any ambitions to add nuclear bombs
to its arsenal, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats say. For months,
Britain, France and Germany have hoped to improve their bargaining
power with the Islamic republic by involving Washington in a proposed
accord over an end to its uranium enrichment activities. This
September 16, 2002 satellite image shows facilities in Natanz, Iran
believed to be part of a previously unknown segment of Iran's nuclear
program. [Reuters]
Israel maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity about its nuclear
program, neither confirming nor denying that it has nuclear weapons.
It has said its reactor is used only for peaceful purposes.
In 1986 former technician Mordechai Vanunu gave information and
pictures of a reactor facility to London's Sunday Times. On the basis
of his revelations, experts concluded that Israel has the world's
sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, consisting of hundreds of
warheads.
"We don't see Israel as a threat to use nuclear weapons anywhere in
the region, in part because it's a democratic state and in part
because it's allied with the United States and we have made it very
clear where we stand on their capabilities," Bolton said.
France, Germany and Britain have been in talks with Iran to persuade
it to indefinitely suspend or scrap its uranium enrichment program in
exchange for technological, financial and political support of
Tehran's efforts to break out of isolation.
Iran has suspended enrichment activities — which can produce both
nuclear fuel and the core of atomic weapons — during the talks, but
has repeatedly insisted the freeze would be of short duration.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, on
Saturday suggested European efforts to persuade Iran to limit its
uranium enrichment program may fail if the United States refuses to
get involved in the negotiations.
The U.S. administration has suggested taking Iran to the U.N. Security
Council.
"If Iran can ... either acquire weapons or develop them indigenously,
it will be a signal that the international community is powerless to
stop a very determined country that wants to acquire nuclear weapons,"
Bolton said. "That would be a bad lesson indeed."
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