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Thursday, 07 October 2004 |
 AP: A senior Russian official says his country is going to continue its nuclear energy cooperation with Iran in spite of concern that Tehran could be trying to develop atomic weapons.
Interfax news agency reports that the deputy foreign minister says Russia will comply with commitments it made in Iran. |
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Thursday, 07 October 2004 |
 Associated Press: U.N. nuclear agency chief Mohammed ElBaradei on Thursday renewed his calls to Iran to fully suspend all uranium enrichment-related activities, after
Tehran admitted it has converted a few tons of uranium into gas.
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Thursday, 07 October 2004 |
 AFP: Iran will hang on to its sensitive nuclear technology "at
any cost" despite pressure from the United States and the Europeans, powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said Thursday.
"The United States and Europe absolutely do not want us to possess nuclear technology but we are determined ... " |
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Wednesday, 06 October 2004 |
 AFP: Iran will not cede to international demands that it suspend all activities related to the enrichment of uranium and the country is prepared for both confrontation or negotiations, the Islamic republic's top national security official said. "We have said clearly that we will not apply the second part of the resolution concerning the total suspension of enrichment," ... |
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Wednesday, 06 October 2004 |
 AP: Iran has converted a few tons of raw uranium into hexafluoride gas needed for enrichment, a necessary step toward producing nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons, a top nuclear official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Uranium hexafluoride gas is the material that, in the next
stage, is fed into centrifuges used to enrich uranium. |
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Wednesday, 06 October 2004 |
 Reuters: U.N. atomic inspectors returned to Iran Tuesday and will be free to visit a disputed military site in their investigation of U.S. allegations that Iran is seeking nuclear warheads, state television reported.
U.S. officials have accused Tehran of concealing parts of a clandestine atomic bomb program at Parchin military base southeast of Tehran ... |
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Wednesday, 06 October 2004 |
 Reuters: The United States sees no reason to offer Iran incentives to ensure its nuclear programme remains peaceful, a U.S. government official said on Tuesday.
European states want the United States to make such proposals to Tehran after the November 2 U.S. presidential election ... |
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Tuesday, 05 October 2004 |
 AFP: A committee of Iran's hardline-dominated parliament gave preliminary approval to a bill that would force the reformist government to resume uranium enrichment in defiance of the UN nuclear watchdog.
State news agency IRNA said the bill was was approved by the foreign affairs and national security committee. |
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Tuesday, 05 October 2004 |
 AP: Iran Iran's conservative-dominated parliament is drafting a bill that would force the reformist government to resume uranium enrichment - a necessary step toward producing nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons - over the objections of the international community.
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Monday, 04 October 2004 |
 Xinhuanet: Iran said on Sunday that it might halt snap UN inspections on its nuclear sites if its parliament approved it,
the official IRNA news agency reported. "If the Majlis (parliament) passes the bill like that and it is approved by the Guardian Council, the government will naturally follow it," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi was quoted
as saying. |
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Monday, 04 October 2004 |
 AFP: A huge majority of MPs in Iran's conservative-controlled parliament wants the country to resume uranium enrichment and will soon begin discussing a bill that would force the reformist government to do so, a senior deputy said Sunday.
"The plan to oblige the government to resume enrichment has the support of 238 deputies" out of a total 290 ... |
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Sunday, 03 October 2004 |
 Reuters: Iran on Sunday rejected a proposal by U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry who has suggested supplying the Islamic state with nuclear fuel for power reactors if Tehran agrees to give up its own fuel-making capability.
Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said it would be "irrational" for Iran to put its nuclear program in jeopardy by relying on supplies from abroad. |
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Sunday, 03 October 2004 |
 AFP: The top US official for arms control, John Bolton, sharply criticized Germany for trading with Iran, which Washington suspects of covertly developing nuclear weapons, in remarks published this weekend.
"I can only speak from the American perspective. We do not trade with countries that seek to breach international nuclear agreements ..." |
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Friday, 01 October 2004 |
 Reuters: Inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog will soon visit the Parchin military complex in Iran, where the United States suspects Tehran has been conducting secret atomic weapons work, Western diplomats said Friday.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said last month there were no indications that Parchin was a nuclear weapons site, but U.S. officials said ElBaradei was not qualified to make such a statement without having inspected the site.
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Friday, 01 October 2004 |
 Reuters: Iran is determined to press ahead with its atomic programme even if its nuclear dossier is sent to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, a leading cleric said
on Friday.
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told worshippers at Friday prayers in Tehran that possible U.N. sanctions on Iran would make the Islamic republic stronger than ever. |
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Thursday, 30 September 2004 |
 Xinhuanet: Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani on Wednesday dismissed the US claim that nuclear tests have been conducted in the Parchin region in Iran, the official IRNA news agency reported.
"The claim is baseless. Such claims are not unprecedented
on the part of the United States," Shamkhani was quoted as saying. |
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Thursday, 30 September 2004 |
 UPI: Russia offered Wednesday to resume construction of a nuclear power plant in Iran if Iran will return the spent fuel, the Interfax news agency reported.
At a Moscow news conference, Russian Security Council secretary Igor Ivanov made the offer of returning to the Bushehr facility. |
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Thursday, 30 September 2004 |
 Voice of America: The United States Wednesday imposed sanctions against 14 foreign firms and individuals, seven of them Chinese, for selling missile or weapons of mass destruction technology and equipment to Iran.
The decision carried in the U.S. government's official journal, the Federal Register, and confirmed by the State Department ... |
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Wednesday, 29 September 2004 |
 AFP: The United States will keep pushing the UN Security Council to consider whether Iran's nuclear ambitions are out
of bounds, John Bolton, US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said.
"The reason we favor taking it to the Security Council is, we want to put Iran in the international spotlight ..." |
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Tuesday, 28 September 2004 |
 Reuters: Iran's hardline lawmakers could try to force President Mohammad Khatami's government to follow North Korea's example and quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the official IRNA news agency said on Tuesday.
Leading conservative parliamentarian Hassan Kamran has prepared a bill for submission to parliament that would force the government to set a November deadline for the U.N. nuclear watchdog to take Iran
off the agency's agenda, IRNA said. |
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Tuesday, 28 September 2004 |
 Reuters: The analysis of soil samples taken by U.N. inspectors
at Lavizan, a site in Tehran that U.S. officials suspect may be linked to an atomic weapons programme, shows no sign of nuclear activity, Western diplomats said.
Satellite photos of Lavizan taken between August 2003 and May 2004 showed that Iran had completely razed Lavizan, a site
which Iran said was a former military research laboratory and
had nothing to do with atomic-related activities. |
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Tuesday, 28 September 2004 |
 AP: President Bush, preparing for this week's much-anticipated campaign debate on foreign policy, is insisting Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon on his watch.
"My hope is that we can solve this diplomatically," Bush said in a TV interview broadcast Monday. "We are working our hearts out so that they don't develop a nuclear weapon, and the best way to do so is to continue to keep international pressure on them." |
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Tuesday, 28 September 2004 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Sep. 27 - A senior member of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, the highest decision-making body on military and security issues, threatened that Iran might pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that it had signed. Ali Larijani threatened action if Iran was put under pressure by Europe and the United States to curb its nuclear program. |
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Monday, 27 September 2004 |
UPI: Iran does not need nuclear weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin said according to a Moscow Times report this weekend.
"Possession of a nuclear bomb will not enhance Iran's security or regional security," the Russian president told the First World Congress of News Agencies ... |
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Monday, 27 September 2004 |
 AFP: US President George W. Bush says "all options are on
the table" for making sure Iran dismantles its nuclear program, and that Washington will never let Tehran acquire atomic weapons.
"My hope is that we can solve this diplomatically," Bush said in a three-part interview with Fox News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor" program, excerpts of which were made public on Sunday. |
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Monday, 27 September 2004 |
 AFP: Iran appealed Sunday for a negotiated settlement to its standoff with the UN atomic energy watchdog but showed no inclination to abide by a resolution calling for an immediate
halt to its sensitive nuclear activities.
"No negotiations with the Americans are on the agenda, but
we call on the Europeans to discuss with us," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. |
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Monday, 27 September 2004 |
 Boston Globe: The diplomatic showdown over Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions could escalate into a confrontation that changes the political dynamic of the Middle East and further destabilizes the region, Western diplomats, officials, and analysts say. |
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Saturday, 25 September 2004 |
 Daily Telegraph: France's foreign minister, Michel Barnier, insisted yesterday that Iran must assure the world that it does not plan to acquire atomic weapons as European nations lost patience with Teheran over its nuclear programme. |
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Saturday, 25 September 2004 |
 AFP: Germany came away from a meeting with Iran on even more concerned about Tehran's nuclear ambitions than before the talks, diplomatic sources said.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer met his Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharazi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York for what the sources said were "very blunt" talks. |
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Friday, 24 September 2004 |
 AFP: A top Iranian conservative cleric warned the United States
on Friday against working to thwart Tehran's efforts to acquire
nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
"If you want to do something that would deprive the Iranian nation ..., thus hurting the nation, you would be faced with the Iranian nation's fists," Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani
said, addressing US President George W. Bush. |
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