Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian lawmaker dismisses Washington’s claims that it would help Israel create a nuclear umbrella against Iran, saying that Tehran pursues a fully peaceful nuclear drive.
“In the modern-day world, nuclear program is no longer a defensive measure aimed at protecting the national security of different countries,” Chairman of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Sunday, press tv reported.
According to officials speaking on condition of anonymity, the US President-elect Barack Obama has reportedly offered Israel a nuclear deterrent apparatus to protect it against what the sources claimed to be ‘an Iranian attack’.
The proposed ‘nuclear umbrella for Israel’ has raised speculation that Obama may have forgotten the promises he made during his campaign and decided to focus more on how to fulfill an “unshakable commitment to Tel Aviv”.
“Obama, who promised change, must realize that the US cannot continue with its old policies in the Middle East,” Al Qadwa told Gulf News.
“(Obama) should at this stage think about how to rescue millions of people in Gaza from the inhumane Israeli siege,” he added.
Boroujerdi criticized Obama for backtracking on promises of ‘change’ and following the Bush administration’s example in the Middle East.
“From the very beginning, we knew that Obama would fail to live up to his promises of changing Washington’s policy for the better,” said the Iranian parliamentarian.
“There is little hope – if none at all – that Obama would be capable of forcing a substantial policy change in Washington,” he added.
The United States and Iran broke diplomatic relations in April 1980, after Iranian students seized the United States’ espionage center at its embassy in the heart of Tehran. The two countries have had tense relations ever since.
But relations between the two arch foes specially deteriorated following Tehran’s progress in the field of civilian nuclear technology. Iran says its nuclear program is a peaceful drive to produce electricity so that the world’s fourth-largest crude exporter can sell more of its oil and gas abroad. The US and its western allies allege that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program while they have never presented corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations against the Islamic Republic.
Tehran also stresses that the country is pursuing a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.
Iran is under three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West’s calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment, saying the demand is politically tainted and illogical.
Iran has so far ruled out halting or limiting its nuclear work in exchange for trade and other incentives, saying that renouncing its rights under the NPT would encourage world powers to put further pressure on the country and would not lead to a change in the West’s hardline stance on Tehran.
Iran has also insisted that it would continue enriching uranium because it needs to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it is building in the southwestern town of Darkhoveyn as well as its first nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr.
Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of IAEA’s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.
Analysts believe that the US is at loggerheads with Iran due mainly to the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran’s nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.
The US attempt to push for stronger Security Council sanctions has been undermined by the country’s own national intelligence estimate, published in late 2007, which said Iran is not pursuing a weapons program.
Washington’s push for additional UN penalties also contradicts reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohammed ElBaradei – one in November and the other one in February – which praised Iran’s truthfulness about key aspects of its past nuclear activities and announced settlement of outstanding issues with Tehran.
The February report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, praised Iran’s cooperation in clearing up all of the past questions over its nuclear program, vindicating Iran’s nuclear program and leaving no justification for any new UN sanctions.
Also in another report to the IAEA’s 35-member Board of Governors, ElBaradei once again verified Iran’s non-diversion of declared nuclear material, adding that the UN agency has failed to discover any “components of a nuclear weapon” or “related nuclear physics studies” in Iran.
The UN nuclear watchdog has also carried out at least 14 surprise inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites so far, but found nothing to support West’s allegations.
The Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog continues snap inspections of Iranian nuclear sites and has reported that all “declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities.”
The aforementioned reports have made any effort to impose further sanctions on Iran completely irrational.
Observers believe that Bush’s attempt to rally international pressure against Iran lost steam due to the growing international vigilance following the said reports.
Many world nations have called the UN Security Council pressure against Iran unjustified, especially in the wake of recent IAEA reports, stressing that Tehran’s case should be normalized and returned to the UN nuclear watchdog due to the Islamic Republic’s increased cooperation with the agency.