Iranian president denounces ‘nuclear apartheid’

The imperialist nuclear military powers have denounced proposals advanced at the United Nations by the president of Iran for the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Instead, they are moving to escalate international tensions by drafting a proposal to bring Iran before the UN Security Council so as to pressure it into ending its processing of nuclear fuel.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at the UN's 60th anniversary summit on Sept. 17, once again reiterated that his country was seeking the peaceful use of nuclear energy and proposed that “as a further confidence building measure and in order to provide the greatest degree of transparency, the Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to engage in serious partnership with private and public sectors of other countries in the implementation of uranium enrichment program in Iran. This represents the most far-reaching step, outside all requirements of the NPT" (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty).

The full text of his speech can be found at www.iribnews.ir.

He pledged once again “continued interaction and technical and legal cooperation with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] will be the centerpiece of our nuclear policy.”

But Britain, France and Germany, the so-called EU3, backed and prodded by Washington, have drafted a punitive resolution to be presented at the IAEA meeting in Vienna. The resolution demands that Iran be taken before the Security Council for alleged “breaches of atomic safeguards.”

The IAEA has never produced an iota of credible evidence that Iran was working on nuclear weapons. But the imperialist powers, seeking to keep all independent nations disarmed and vulnerable to attack, have brought relentless pressure, including threats of military attack by Washington and Israel, to intimidate and terrorize the Iranian government into abandoning its nuclear energy program.

President Ahmadinejad referred to the hypocrisy of Washington, Britain, France and Germany in calling Iran a nuclear threat even as “Thousands of nuclear warheads that are stockpiled in various locations coupled with programs to further develop these inhuman weapons have created a new atmosphere of repression and the rule of the machines of war, threatening the international community and even the citizens of the countries that possess them.”

In fact, it is these very nuclear imperialist powers that are in the greatest violation of the NPT, written and signed over 30 years ago, which mandated the process of nuclear disarmament.

He denounced “nuclear apartheid” and the fact that “the culprits are arrogating to themselves the role of the prosecutor” and “portray themselves as defenders of freedom and human rights.”

“How can one talk about human rights,” Ahmadinejad declared, “and at the same time blatantly deny many the inalienable right to have access to science and technology with applications in medicine, industry and energy and through force and intimidation hinder their progress and development? Can nations be deprived of scientific and technological progress through the threat of the use of force and based on mere allegations of possibility of military diversion?”

“We must not,” he declared, “at the beginning of the 21st century, revert to logic of the dark ages.”

President Ahmadinejad proposed that the General Assembly, “as the most inclusive UN organ,” create a committee to investigate mechanisms for enforcing the NPT and “to investigate how—contrary to the NPT—material, technology and equipment for nuclear weapons were transferred to the Zionist regime, and to propose practical measures for the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.”

Washington and the EU3 are trying to bury their own aggressive attempts at world nuclear domination beneath a pile of false charges and slanders against Iran, which has submitted to hundreds of inspections. Teheran has invited the IAEA to monitor its enrichment processes. It is a clear case of a bunch of thieves crying “thief.”

Iran, like all nations oppressed or formerly oppressed by imperialism, has the right to self-determination. The ruling classes of Britain and the U.S., the former colonizers of Iran, are attempting to destroy its independence as a nation by preventing it from developing nuclear energy, whether for power or for self-defense. They are aided by the German and French imperialists.

Beneath all the diplomacy in Vienna, New York and Washington is the threat of aggression by the Pentagon or its Middle East outpost in Tel Aviv. It is a matter of urgency for the anti-war movement to stand in solidarity with the Iranian people and to demand that the U.S. and the EU3 keep their hands off Iran and cease obstructing its program of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and national development.