Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Iran

Iran Deplores West's 'Bullying Methods'

April 16, 2007 -- President Mahmud Ahmadinejad today vowed that Iran would resist "to the end" the standoff over the country's nuclear drive.

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April 16, 2007

In a televised speech in the southern city of Shiraz, Ahmadinejad warned world powers to give up "bullying methods" and not to "misuse" the UN Security Council.

"You should know that by misusing the international organizations that you have created and set the rules for, you will not be able to [undermine] the will of the Iranian nation," Ahmadinejad said.

The comment comes a week after Ahmadinejad announced that Iran was capable of producing nuclear fuel on an industrial scale through enrichment.

The council had imposed two sets of sanctions on Iran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Western nations suspect Iran's nuclear program is aimed at producing atomic weapons. Tehran denies this.

(AFP, AP, dpa)

FURTHER READING
Sanctions Controversy On March 24, the UN Security Council adopted a new round of sanctions against Iran. Tehran denounced the move as "illegal, useless, and unjustified." more	Inside Bushehr Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant is more than 90 percent complete. RFE/RL presents a gallery of images from inside the facility. more

Talking Technical

A control panel at the Bushehr nuclear power plant (Fars)

CASCADES AND CENTRIFUGES: Experts and pundits alike continue to debate the goals and status of Iran's nuclear program. It remains unclear whether the program is, as Tehran insists, a purely peaceful enegy project or, as the United States claims, part of an effort to acquire nuclear weapons.
On June 7, 2006, RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel spoke with nuclear expert Shannon Kile of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden to help sort through some of the technical issues involved. "[Natanz] will be quite a large plant," Kile said. "There will be about 50,000 centrifuges and how much enriched uranium that can produce [is] hard to say because the efficiency of the centrifuges is not really known yet. But it would clearly be enough to be able to produce enough [highly-enriched uranium] for a nuclear weapon in fairly short order, if that's the route that they chose to go...." (more)

Tehran Says It Is Working On Advanced Nuclear Fusion

Would Light-Water Reactor Suit Tehran's Needs?

Satellite Images Raise Questions About Iran's Nuclear Program

Centrifuges And Political Spin?

How Close Is Iran To Getting Nuclear Bomb?

Iran: The Worst-Case Scenarios

THE COMPLETE STORY: RFE/RL's complete coverage of controversy surrounding Iran's nuclear program.

CHRONOLOGY

An annotated timeline of Iran's nuclear program.

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