UN Nuclear Chief: Iran Wants Nuclear Weapons Technology
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says he believes Iran would like to have the ability to build nuclear weapons.
In an interview broadcast on the BBC Wednesday, Mohamed ElBaradei said it is his "gut feeling" that Iran wants the technology to send a message that it is not to be, in his words, "messed with."
He said he believes Iran's ultimate aim is to be recognized as a major power in the Middle East.
Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told reporters ElBaradei is wrong and that Iran has no intention of ever having a nuclear weapon.
He said Iran does not consider a nuclear weapon an advantage and repeated the country's claim that it is pursuing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
The ambassador spoke in Vienna, where the IAEA Board of Governors is meeting this week.
The United Nations Security Council has imposed several sets of sanctions on Iran to try to get it to stop its uranium enrichment program.
Meanwhile in Moscow Wednesday, the presidents of Russia and China, Dmitri Medvedev and Hu Jintao, called for a diplomatic resolution to tensions over Iran's nuclear activities.
The Russian and Chinese leaders stressed the need to restore the international community's trust in what they called the "peaceful nature" of Iran's nuclear program and said the situation can only be settled in political and diplomatic ways.
Earlier this week, ElBaradei urged Iran to cooperate with nuclear inspectors and accept an offer to engage in dialogue with the United States.
From VOA News http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-17-voa34.cfm17 June 2009
I have given you the importance of nuclear energy for our future and I suggest that it is inevitable to use nuke energy and rely on this incredible source of energy.
So what do you think of the nuclear energy? Do you think that it is appropriate for many countries to develope and use nuclear technology for peaceful purpose? Or do you think that nuclear technology should be completely abandoned?
I want to say here that there are many advantages of developing and using nuclear technology. One advantage is that when producing energy, nuclear dose not produce co2. Now that we face serious global warming and have to cut co2 emission and reduce green house effect drastically, we can achieve it to a certain degree by using nuclear technology to produce a lot of energy, instead of rallying heavily on fossil fuel, coal, natural Gus and other limited natural resource. And if we did not depend on Middle East for fossil fuel, we would not conflict with each other over an interest of oil. It is possible to reduce geopolitical risks by diversification of energies.
What I would like to claim here is that only for peaceful purpose, developing and using nuclear energy is not evil, but necessary and even inevitable for our future and it would be impossible for people on this planet to live without this great invention. Try to abandon your preconception about nuclear energy and face realities around us.
There are officially 8 countries having nuclear weapon: United States, Russia, France, United Kingdom, and China, They are permanent member of Security Council. And India, Pakistan, and supposedly North Korea. At present, we are in a good balance of peace because of diversification of nuclear technology. If one country is going to use nuke weapons, it is inevitable that the other countries will attack that country by same weapons as revenge. When this happens, we will see the end of our earth. Any countries now are not willing to trigger its nuclear weapons. But what if countries like North Korea and Iran prevailing dictatorship would stupidly do?
To prevent it from happening, international organizations like UN should keep an eye on such a country by impose on stricter regulation to force them to make everything related nuclear tech public, and if they do not obey rules, UN could forcibly stop actions and even destroy their facilities. Now watching on countries which have nuclear technology is operating under IAEA, but it is not effective anymore because of lack of coercion, so we have to establish new independent international body which has enforcement ability. Such a powerful body will solve the problem of unnecessary proliferation and the possibility of the nuclear war. What is most important here is to give such body powerful enforcement ability, and be independent from any countries to be fair.
By Takenaka
