“Israel is too weak to stage a military strike against Iran, but if it attacks, it will receive a devastating response, which will make it regret its aggression,” said President Ahmadinejad in a televised interview with Al-Jazeera TV Network on Sunday.

The Iranian President rejected the idea that Arab countries’ soil would be used to launch attacks on Iran, saying that the “leaders of these countries are more prudent than that.”

Ahmadinejad further downplayed US military might in its current wars in the Middle East region and dismissed the speculations that an imminent war against Iran was the cause of the US troops’ withdrawal from Iraq.

“Do you think an army that has been beaten by a small army is pulling back from Iraq in order to combat a large and well trained army like the Iranian army? I don’t think so. The United States is not capable of opening a front against Iran. There are no logical motivations and real reasons for such an act,” the Iranian chief executive noted.

“Experience suggests that friendship with Iran is much better than hostility towards it. No one will benefit from animosity against Iran,” he continued.

President Ahmadinjad’s comments come in the wake of provocative remarks from former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton who had urged Israel to strike Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant before nuclear fuel is loaded into it, increasing the speculations that a US or Israeli military option against Iran is still on the table.

Read more here.

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Under international regulations, he said, attacking power stations is regarded as an ‘international crime’ since the consequences of such a strike will not be limited to the country where the plant is located, but will be global.

“This is stipulated in the resolutions passed by the IAEA and the UN Security Council as well as in the resolution adopted at the close of the NPT Review Conference”, Salehi underlined.

Elsewhere in his interview, Salehi thanked Russians for their cooperation in launching the Bushehr nuclear plant.

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Iran has criticized new EU sanctions against the country over its nuclear program, saying such measures will “only complicate matters,” reports Press TV.

The European Union on Monday adopted new sanctions against Iran which mainly target investment in and technical assistance to Iran’s refining, liquefaction and liquefied natural gas sectors.

“Sanctions… will only complicate matters and move away [the parties] from mutual understanding,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted by IRNA as saying.

The sanctions came a day after the Iranian foreign minister announced Tehran was ready to hold talks with the West on nuclear fuel swap.

Manouchehr Mottaki made the remark in a press conference after holding trilateral talks with his counterparts from Turkey and Brazil in Istanbul on Sunday.

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Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has issued a declaration in response to a recent UN Security Council resolution against the country.

In the name of God, the most Gracious and the Merciful

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Declaration in Response to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929

The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1929 on 9 June 2010. Contrary to the expectation of the international community that the new UNSC resolution would condemn Israel’s attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla less than ten days before the adoption of the Resolution, the international community saw once again the United States defending the Zionist regime and thus preventing the Security Council from taking any action against the atrocities The Resolution also ignored the final declaration of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference that was adopted just 15 days earlier by 189 countries. This declaration required the Zionist regime to abide by the NPT. But the international community had not seen a single UNSC resolution condemning the nuclear activities of the Zionist regime. Nor has the Council shown any intention of finding out who has provided nuclear weapons to the Zionist regime.

The reason is clear. Some of the permanent members of the Security Council are principal suspects of this proliferation. The subject of Resolution 1929 is not about the concern over production, manufacturing, proliferation or testing of a new generation of nuclear weapons by permanent members of the Security Council. Also there is no reference to 11 proposals by the Islamic Republic of Iran during the NPT Review Conference concerning disarmament and non-proliferation; the same proposals that received a warm response by the international community. The subject of the Resolution, contrary to all expectations, is the peaceful nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which have been demonized on the basis of false accusation that accusations that have not been proven. On the contrary, the last report by the Director General of the IAEA, published only a day before the Resolution, reiterated for the 22nd time that our activities have not diverted from their peaceful objectives.

Those behind the adoption of this Resolution are exposing themselves to the judgment of the international community under circumstances that the world witnessed adoption of Tehran declaration. This was a declaration that openly and clearly called for peaceful nuclear cooperation without any confrontation with regards to the rights of sovereign nations. The United States encouraged Brazil and Turkey to interact with Iran. This is while one month after the adoption of the Tehran declaration, it was welcomed by the 120 members of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The adoption of Resolution 1929 irrespective of the Tehran declaration and the attack on Gaza Freedom Flotilla has proven the righteousness of the viewpoints of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Read the full declaration here.

A day after the UN Security Council voted on a US-drafted resolution for new anti-Iran sanctions, Tehran’s IAEA envoy reiterates that Iran’s nuclear enrichment will not be suspended.

Iran’s Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali-Asghar Soltanieh expressed regret about the persisting trend of misleading assessments made by the West regarding Iran’s nuclear policy.

“It is regretful that this small number of Western countries do not want to learn a lesson from their past mistakes…they suppose that by passing the new resolution, the Islamic Republic would falter in its decision,” Soltanieh said in an interview with IRNA on Wednesday.

The Iranian envoy criticized the new sanctions resolution for not having any “legal basis,” adding that it would only strengthen the Iranian nation’s resolve in defending their rights to such technological achievements.

Describing the fresh sanctions as a new failure for the US, Soltanieh said, “Iran will never put a halt to its enrichment program and will continue these activities under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

The remarks were made after the United States moved firmly away from the Obama administration’s promise of diplomatic engagement with Iran and pushed through a new round of UNSC sanctions against the country.

As a result, the 15-member UN Security Council voted in favor of slapping a fourth round of sanctions against Iran on Wednesday under the allegation that Tehran is seeking to build nuclear weapons despite repeated assurances from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the non-diversion of nuclear material in the country.

However, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran insists that it should be entitled to exercise its peaceful nuclear rights.

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The US-Iran nuclear debate has been inflaming the international and domestic political scenes with a dangerous escalation of threats, counter-threats and reciprocal accusations of dubious credibility. What is being gradually revealed, however, is that the current US-Iran conflict is less about an impending nuclear war and more about the United States’ steady and protracted commitment to ensuring Israel’s dominance in the Middle East.

In the April 17th, 2006 issue of The New Yorker magazine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh caused a furor in the American mediascape by publishing an article which delineated the US government’s preparations for an attack on Iran. Citing a government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon, Hersh wrote that ‘Bush was absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb if it is not stopped.’ Furthermore, Hersh interrogated Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert and deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who is a supporter of President Bush, on the dynamics of a possible attack against the Iranians. ‘Iran has no choice but to accede to America’s demands,’ Clawson told Hersh, ‘or face a military attack.’

Iran’s ‘unforgivable crime’ has been that of pursuing uranium enrichment which, the Iranians claim, is for civilian use and the development of energy-producing nuclear reactors. The US, instead, nurtures a strong suspicion of Iran’s bellicose intentions. Certainly, Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s comments regarding Israel’s status of sovereignty have been anything but conciliatory. Yet hurtful words have never been the presage, let alone the evidence, of an impending nuclear onslaught, Islamist or otherwise.

While Iran’s fate is being addressed by the international community at the UN Security Council, the Bush administration, wrote Hersh, continued with its own, premeditated course. Quoting a former senior intelligence official, Hersh wrote: ‘The Iran attack plans include significant air attacks on their countermeasures and anti-aircraft missiles… these are operational plans.’ With the continuous back-and-forth of rising tones between the US and Iran, one cannot help but recall the fever spread by the Bush administration on the eve of the Iraq War regarding the imminent danger of Saddam Hussein’s now illusory weapons of mass destruction.

A half-month prior to Hersh’s reportage, a lengthy and well-researched essay appeared in the London Review of Books entitled ‘The Israel Lobby’ and penned by two American professors, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard. Though the essay immediately drew heavy and vituperative flak from across the academic and media spectra, it touched upon the driving force behind the US’ recent, heated rhetoric against Iran- primarily, that ‘US policy in the Middle East is driven primarily by the commitment to Israel, not oil interests.’ In their essay, the two academics methodically indicate the web of influence across media, academia, and the Washington political scene which was woven by the influential network of pro-Israel lobbies to point US foreign policy in Israel’s favour: ‘The Israel government and pro-Israel groups in the United States have worked together to shape the administration’s policy towards Iraq, Syria and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East.,’ say Mearsheimer and Walt. ‘… the war [in Iraq] was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.’

In the United States, Israel’s popularity is substantially due to this lobby’s success at portraying Israel in a favorable light while limiting public awareness and discussion of Israel’s less savoury actions. The Palestinian struggle is rarely ever depicted with sympathy as the major media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Times have married themselves with the Israel Lobby’s agenda. Organizations such as AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the second largest lobby in Washington, D.C., in the meantime, pressure politicians to adopt foreign policies complimentary to their agenda to ensure Israel’s dominance in the Middle East. The fear of a nuclear and aggressive Iran in the US is real and tangible. Politicians frequently discuss the dangers of a nuclear Iran. Newspapers and the television news highlight the threats to world peace that Iran pose on a daily basis. It is difficult for the average American to think otherwise amidst the maelstrom of fear-generating propaganda.

The crux of the Mearsheimer and Walt argument is this: Iran’s nuclear ambitions do not pose a direct threat neither to the US, nor to the West. If the US and the West could live with a nuclear Soviet Union, a nuclear China, or even a nuclear North Korea, it can live with a nuclear Iran. In fact, Israel, as a nuclear power, is no less a threat to world peace than any of the aforementioned states. There is no indication whatsoever in the annals of strategic analysis that a nuclear Iran will compromise Western peace. The risks of an Iranian nuclear attack are close to none as the Iranians would be aware of immediate nuclear reprisals. And the possibilities of Iranian nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists are equally low as the Iranians would know that they would be the primary suspects.

When Mearsheimer and Walt’s lucid argumentation is taken into consideration, the gung-ho moral chauvinism of American political ideology begins to fall on deaf ears. The United States is the only state to have ever used a nuclear weapon in a military attack. In fact, the have used it twice and on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If the past serves as any lesson, the Americans should then be the last to lecture the world on the elements of peace in the post-nuclear world. Unless what the US fears most is not Iran, but itself.

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The head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said today that the potential military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear programme make the country a “special case” for the agency as he called on Tehran to take action to ensure it fully implements its international obligations.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told the body’s Board of Governors in Vienna that “Iran’s Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement requires the agency to seek to verify both the non-diversion of nuclear material from declared activities and the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities.”

Iran’s nuclear programme – which its officials have stated is for peaceful purposes, but some other countries contend is driven by military ambitions – has been a matter of international concern since the discovery in 2003 that the country had concealed its nuclear activities for 18 years in breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Mr. Amano said today that the “necessary cooperation” on the part of Iran would include implementing resolutions of both the IAEA Board of Governors and the Security Council, as well as putting the Additional Protocol, a set of safeguards aimed at boosting the agency’s ability to ensure that a State does not have undeclared nuclear material, into place.

Under an agreement brokered last month by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Iran would ship its low-enriched uranium out of the country in exchange for high-enriched uranium for use at a civilian nuclear research site in its capital, Tehran.

This follows a draft text on providing fuel for the Tehran site – in which Iranian low-enriched uranium would be shipped for further enrichment to Russia and then to France to be fabricated into fuel – reached late last year, which was approved by France, Russia and the United States, but ultimately not accepted by Iran.

Low refined uranium can be used for civilian energy reactors but when purified to a much higher degree it can also be used in making nuclear weapons.

Late last month, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Iran to end its continued enrichment of uranium to 20 per cent purity so as to build mutual trust over its nuclear programme.

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Iran has called on the Middle East countries to send joint aid convoys to the Gaza Strip, as worldwide condemnation of an Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla continues.

“Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili proposed the sending of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza from the Persian Gulf, with the cooperation of regional countries,” Fars News Agency reported.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Oman’s visiting Parliament Speaker Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Isa’ee.

Israel drew worldwide condemnation by attacking a Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla last week, killing at least 20 people and injuring dozens of others.

Tel Aviv, which has remained defiant of international calls for an end to the three-year blockade it has imposed on Gaza, seized control of a second Gaza-bound aid ship, the Rachel Corrie, on Saturday.

Jalili’s remarks come as Iran’s Red Crescent announced Monday that two Iranian aid ships carrying humanitarian relief and medical supplies for the people of Gaza would set sail for the coastal sliver in the upcoming days.

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All missiles tested in Iran’s recent naval drill have been built domestically and will be soon mass-produced, the country’s defense minister says.

Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said Monday that the main objective of the military exercise by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz was to test coast-to-sea and sea-to-sea cruise missiles, drones and electronic warfare systems.

Speaking on the sidelines of the last round of the ‘Great Prophet V’ maneuvers, the minister told Fars News Agency that smart weapons fired in the drills simultaneously and successfully hit their targets by using laser technology.

General Vahidi said the missiles — Nasr, Nour, Saeqeh, Fajr III and Fajr V missiles — have high precision and a range of 45 km (28 miles) to 300 km (186 miles).

“The arrogant powers should come to realize that the Persian Gulf littoral states do not need the presence of foreign forces in the region,” he said.

Last Thursday, the IRGC launched a massive military exercise to highlight the country’s defense capabilities and its determination to safeguard regional security.

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Amid calls for tougher punitive measures against Tehran, an Iranian diplomat calls on Japan to listen to countries that do not favor fresh sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Iranian Ambassador to Tokyo Abbas Araqchi said that Japan, which holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, should listen to countries that do not support sanctions instead of leaving the matter to a handful of Western countries.

“It is not logical at all. It is not fair at all that we put everything in the hands of P5+1 and they decide for the world without taking into consideration the concerns of other nations,” Araqchi told national broadcaster NHK on Monday.

For years, the United States and European countries have sought to impose new UN sanctions against Iran, accusing it of planning to construct secret nuclear weapons.

Iran has rejected the accusations, saying that its nuclear program is intended for energy production, not weapons development.

“You cannot punish somebody now for a crime that he or she may commit in the future. You should punish those who have nuclear weapons and threaten to use them,” Araqchi added.

The Iranian envoy reiterated that Iran’s nuclear activities pursue civilian applications and dismissed sanctions as “unjust and unfair”.

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