West’s nuclear allegations target Iran’s scientific progress: Lawmaker

An Iranian lawmaker has denounced the West’s antagonistic approach toward Iran’s nuclear energy program as a scenario to halt the Islamic Republic’s technological progress.

“The animosity of the West and the US is manifest in the nuclear talks with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Mohammad Hossein Farhangi, a member of the Majlis Presiding Board, said on Saturday.

Farhangi was alluding to the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.

He dismissed the speculations of the West and the P5+1 that Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 20 percent may be aimed at weaponization and argued that such claims are unacceptable to the world’s public opinion as the production of nuclear weapons requires the enrichment of uranium to at least 90 percent.

The West and the United States will do their best to obstruct the emergence of Iran as a scientifically and technologically advanced nation in the world and as a model for Muslim nations, he added.

“Based on its revolutionary principles and goals, the Islamic Republic of Iran will never give up on its inalienable rights and will not surrender to the bullying of despotic powers,” the Iranian legislator pointed out.

Farhangi also argued that even if Tehran yielded to the West’s demands to abandon its nuclear energy program, the Western powers would come up with other pretexts to put Tehran under pressure, as “their ultimate objective is to overthrow the Islamic ruling system.”

He further said that the West fears Iran’s growing clout in the Middle East and Latin America as well as the emergence of the Islamic Republic as a role model for other world countries and noted that the allegations against Iran’s nuclear energy program come despite the illegitimacy of weapons of mass destruction in the Shia jurisprudence and despite the fatwa by the Leader of Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei against nuclear armaments.

On February 22, The Leader of Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei said the Iranian nation has never sought and will never seek nuclear weapons.

“There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous,” the Leader of Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei said.

The US, Israel and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran has strongly rejected the Western publicity campaign that its nuclear program may be diverted to military objectives, while insisting that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it is entitled to pursue nuclear technology for its numerous civilian purposes.