H.E. Mr. Sithole
Honorable Chairperson, Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs
It is an honor and privilege for me to be in the presence of the Esteemed
Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs. I would like to express my appreciation
to Your Excellency for providing me with this opportunity to raise some facts
about the nuclear file of our country. .
Iran is a country with 10000 years of written history and a 3000- year history
of civilization. Part of this civilization was crystallized in the Islamic
revolution in the country which had its roots in the people's deep interest in
Islam which preaches peace and affection among human beings, and their deep
empathy with the Holy Prophet of Islam and his noble household.
Honorable Members,
I am sure that you have often read or heard about Iran's nuclear issue in the
press and western media. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the inception
of Iran's nuclear program. It was in 1957 that the government of the United
States signed a series of agreements with the then Iranian authorities on
launching of nuclear power reactors and Iran's gaining access to peaceful use
of nuclear energy. During the years later on more notes were added to the said
agreements, while Canada, France and Germany later on signed agreements with
Iran on Nuclear technology and the related issues.. An agreement reached with
Germany to construct Bushehr reactor; and at that time none of those countries
told us "you have enough oil and gas reserves and therefore you don't need
nuclear energy". It was a logical decision taken before the Islamic
revolution. Of course after the revolution in 1979 all the said agreements came
to a halt. This laid the foundation for Iran's mistrust towards west. Germany
left Bushehr and we had to turn to Russians to complete construction of the
reactor. Now 28 years have passed since that time and Bushehr reactor has not
yet been put into operation. 95 percent of its construction has been finished
and is in the phase of injection of fuel. Therefore, after the Islamic
Revolution that the US and the west never wanted to find out its cause, we
tried to stand on our own feet and we embarked upon enriching uranium and heavy
water projects. This field
needed advanced knowledge and sophisticated technology. Iran has become a
member of Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since signing the treaty in1974; and
has been committed to the safeguards of International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA). Therefore it is not right to be said that Iran has had secret
activities. There is the possibility that some of the cases might have not been
reported due to lack of our experience in this regard, but however, the Agency
has not so far announced any breach of law on our part. It has confirmed that
Iran has announced all its activities and that so far there has not been any
deviation towards military purposes. In 2003 there has been much hue and cry by
certain countries that Iran intended to produce nuclear weapon and that they
were concerned about Iran's intentions. Since we were fully ready to cooperate
with the Agency, they asked us to suspend our activities and not to expand
them; and we acted accordingly. They asked us to sign the Additional Protocol
and implement it, which we acted accordingly and implemented it voluntarily;
while it had not yet been approved by the Islamic Consultative Assembly (
Majlis, or Iranian
parliament). Then they demanded us to respond to more questions, which we did.
We suspended our activities for two and a half years and promoted our
cooperation with the Agency. We allowed 2400 days of inspection of our sites to
the IAEA inspectors. Then we opened our military sites as demanded by them,
which was indeed very unpleasant for our military commanders. They inspected
the said sites for 27 times without finding anything abnormal and announced
that the Agency is not in a condition to declare Iran's unannounced cases. You
know that inspection process is a long one. In the case of Japan for instance,
it took 40 years before it was announced that they had no unannounced cases and
that country was awarded the certificate for its work. We didn't leave any of
their questions unanswered. In March 2004 we offered our timetable. It took
five months for them to consider it and then only to say that it was not
acceptable, and that they would offer their
package. In August 2005 the same process was repeated. In this date they
offered their first package of incentives and demanded us to desist from our
right in exchange for unimportant a1.1d in some cases insulting pledges, like
better access to internet. We promptly rejected that package, and came to
realize this fact that we could not fulfill our nuclear rights through
negotiation with the Europe. We are committed to NPT, 'and accordingly we enjoy
certain rights. They embarked upon issuing resolution against us and said that
we should suspend enrichment process as a prerequisite for negotiation. We said
we had previously suspended that process for two and half years to no avail. In
fact their intention was to deprive us of our rights.
They issued three resolutions, two of which in favor of economic embargo
against our country. Of course this approach was not strange to us because in
1950s during the campaign for nationalization of Iran's oil industry, the
British authorities issued a resolution and said that nationalization of Iran's
oil industry constitutes a threat to the world peace and security; but our
people and government had determined to continue their campaign. It was for
that very reason that a coup d'etat came into being which led to the downfall
of the government, and dictatorship returned to the country. It was the price
that the nation paid for nationalization of its oil. Considering the conditions
prevailing in the world, we have come to the understanding that we have no
option but to resist in order to fulfill our rights, and we should pay the
prices for this decision.
Honorable Members,
We are confident about the peaceful nature of our actions, yet to make sure the
rest of the world about this fact we announce that we are ready to enter into
partnership with others in our project. In our view everybody is entitled to
express concern about an issue .For this very reason we proposed different ways
like formation of a consortium, partnership in uranium enrichment, etc, in a
bid to build trust. Unfortunately, 5+ I countries lost two years which was a
valuable time for negotiation. Now we have around 3000 centrifuges into which
we are injecting UF6. We possess enough amount of yellow cake,
part of which has been purchased from South Africa before the Islamic
Revolution, and the rest are being produced inside Iran through making use of
three uranium mines in the country. UCF factory in Isfahan converts yellow cake
to UF6 gas, and this gas in turn is injected into centrifuges in Natanz , and
enrichment is done on a 5 percent scale, which is needed for the reactors for
generating energy. We completed fuel cycle, and it is entirely an indigenous
technology. Of course we bought some equipment from others, but the trend of
work is a domestic one. Meanwhile the west lost many valuable years and only
emphasized on suspension. We cannot suspend uranium enrichment, because this is
our right to make use of this technology, but as regards the concern for
deviation towards military purposes, we are
ready to negotiate with them and remove their concerns vis-a-vis our peaceful
programs.
Thank you