Official: Enemies Fearing Iran’s Progress

The enemies of Iran are fearing the country’s scientific progress, a senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official said, and added that western efforts to hinder Iran’s progress will remain futile.

“What has caused the reaction of the countries like the US to Iran’s scientific progress in the nuclear field is the involvement of young Iranian scientists in a science that they had assumed to be very advanced and inaccessible (for Iran),” Deputy Foreign Minister for Asian and Oceanic Affairs Abbas Araqchi said, addressing a gathering here in Tehran on Tuesday.

“But” he said “the Iranian scientists are climbing peaks of this science (nuclear knowledge) step by step and this has made them (enemies) angry.”

He further downplayed the impacts of the western sanctions against the country, and stated, “They are completely wrong if they think that they can force us to retreat.”

The remarks by the Iranian diplomat came after Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said that foreign pressure will not change Iran’s calculations and the West is facing serious crises.

The leader stated in July that the Iranian nation will not give in to western pressures, and noted that the US-engineered sanctions will only make Iranian officials more determined to defend the nation’s rights.

Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West’s calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.

Tehran has dismissed the West’s demand as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians’ national resolve to continue the path.