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Iran insists on nuclear autonomy
By Brooks Tigner
07 October 2008
Iran's Shahab missile research work and related sites "are off-limits" to any negotiations by Western governments concerning the country's nuclear enrichment activities, says Iran's top delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"It is unbelievable for the world to expect us to give out any top-secret information about our Shahab-3 missile programme, our explosives work or our sites [as part of US-led demands to verify whether enriched uranium has been diverted in Iran from civilian to military application]," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's top diplomat to the IAEA said during a trip to Brussels on 2 October.
As for Iran's uranium enrichment ambitions, Soltanieh said "technically and scientifically it is impossible to change [enrichment] centrifuges from low enrichment to high enrichment overnight", adding: "It is simply impossible that Iran could do this for weapons. Go do your homework and check the scientific data."
However, he also stated that Teheran "has mastered" the technology and has no intention of suspending enrichment in the absence of any internationally guaranteed security of supply, because it needs the fuel for future power generation, for use in research and to supply isotopes to Iran's hospitals.