'No need' for Iranian nuclear arms: Ahmadinejad

'No need' for Iranian nuclear arms: Ahmadinejad
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Sept 13, 2011

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on Tuesday that his country has "no need" for nuclear weapons, amid new concerns from an international atomic watchdog group about Tehran's atomic ambitions.

"We do not need nuclear weapons and we do not accept that," Ahmadinejad told the NBC television "Today Show" program. "We are against that," he said.

He made his remarks as the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meets in Vienna this week to discuss, among other matters, Iran's nuclear activities, which many in the West suspect are aimed at developing atomic weapons.

The IAEA, which is meeting at its Vienna headquarters from Monday to Friday, was also to discuss the atomic nuclear aspirations of Syria and North Korea.

The IAEA said in a confidential report obtained earlier this month by AFP that it is "increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations," the report said.

These included "activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile".

The Islamic republic insists, however, that its activities are aimed exclusively at developing nuclear power.

"This is an old and repeated story," Ahmadinejad told NBC television.

"In principle, we are against nuclear weapons because it is against our beliefs and our ideology," he said.

The UN Security Council has slapped four rounds of sanctions on Iran to get it to suspend uranium enrichment, a process which can produce fuel for a reactor but which also can be used in a nuclear warhead.

The 35-member IAEA board was also to discuss nuclear safety in Japan following the Fukushima disaster last March.

The IAEA issued a 12-point program encouraging fresh assessments and emergency plans for the world's 440 nuclear plants.

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Iran plant shows it does not need enrichment: US
Washington (AFP) Sept 12, 2011 - The fact that Iran's first nuclear power plant is now onstream is proof that the Islamic republic does not need the ability to conduct uranium enrichment, the US State Department said Monday.

A ceremony was held at the Russian-built plant in the southern Iranian port of Bushehr on Monday to mark the facility reaching 40 percent of its full capacity.

"We would note that Russia's agreement with Iran on Bushehr provides that Russia will provide the fuel for Bushehr and will take back the spent fuel," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

That fact "in our view underscores the point that Iran doesn't need its own enrichment facilities because it can receive fuel from the international community, as it is in this case," she said.

Iran is targeted by UN Security Council and international sanctions over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment amid fears in the West that it seeks to build a nuclear bomb -- a charge it vehemently denies.

Nuland also said that with the opening of the Bushehr plant, "Iran is now the only country in the world with an operating power reactor that has not ratified the Convention on Nuclear Safety."

She called that fact "quite troubling."

"More broadly, the Bushehr opening doesn't change the fact that Iran still has to meet its larger obligations to the international community and the IAEA," Nuland said.

Mohammad Ahmadian, deputy head of Iran's atomic organisation in charge of power plants, said Monday the Bushehr plant would be linked to the national grid with its full 1,000-megawatt capacity by the end of the Iranian year in March.

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