Tehran - Tehran on Monday termed as baseless remarks by the
head of the US military Joint Chiefs of Staff that Iran had enough
fissile material to make a nuclear bomb.
'These are baseless remarks, even from the technical viewpoint,
and just for political propaganda,' Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan
Ghashghavi told reporters in Tehran.
In a televised interview on Sunday, Admeral Mike Mullen, head of
the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he believed Iran has enough
fissile material to make a nuclear bomb.
'Iran is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
and all its nuclear programmes are under the supervision of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and monitored by IAEA
cameras,' the spokesman said.
Ghashghavi insisted that Iran's uranium enrichment level is under
4 per cent and the country was neither willing nor capable to upgrade
the enrichment level to over 90 per cent which is necessary to make
nuclear weapons.
'The remarks by the US admiral were also immediately revised by
Gates,' the spokesman said, referring to US Defense Secretary Robert
Gates who said in another TV interview that Iran was not close to a
stockpile and therefore not close to a weapon, either.
Iran has constantly stressed that building nuclear weapons had no
place in Iran's defence doctrine and was furthermore against Iran's
Islamic principles.
The government, however, says that as an NPT signatory and IAEA
member state it has an internationally acknowledged right to pursue
nuclear technology, including the controversial uranium enrichment
process.
The United Nations Security Council has so far issued three
resolutions, including sanctions, against Tehran for having defied
suspension of its enrichment programme. But the government of
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that it would not be intimidated
by such international measures.
Iran claims to currently have 6,000 operating centrifuges which
the country plans to increase to 10,000 by April this year. The final
aim of Iran is to have 50,000 centrifuges within five years for
running its nuclear fuel cycle.
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