Iran’s “strategy” is to obtain nuclear weapons – exile

Iran Focus: London, Jan. 30 – Iran is intent on obtaining nuclear weapons and is using negotiations as a tool to buy time while it secretly carries out banned activities, an Iranian opposition figure said on Monday. Iran Focus

London, Jan. 30 – Iran is intent on obtaining nuclear weapons and is using negotiations as a tool to buy time while it secretly carries out banned activities, an Iranian opposition figure said on Monday.

Hossein Abedini, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said that Tehran had made a “strategic decision” to acquire nuclear weapons.

The NCRI was the opposition movement that first blew the whistle on Tehran’s secret nuclear activities in August 2002.

“The regime has made a strategic decision to forge ahead with its nuclear weapons program”, Abedini told Iran Focus in a telephone interview.

He said that the West was dealing with a regime that had been “cheating and deceiving” the world community for more than 18 years until the NCRI revealed its secret nuclear projects in Natanz and Arak.

“As part of the radicalisation of the regime, Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali”> Khamenei has given vast powers to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to advance its policies in three key areas”, Abedini said.

Tehran is “increasing repression at home”, “stepping up meddling in Iraq”, and “forging ahead with its nuclear weapons program”, he said.

Abedini went on to say that the “instalment” of radical hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Iranian Presidency was part of the Supreme Leader’s strategy to bully the West into accepting a nuclear-armed Iran. “Ahmadinejad was brought to the helm for this precise reason”.

Commenting on talks between European and Iranian nuclear negotiators and reports that Tehran may be willing to accept a deal in which it refrains from carrying out uranium enrichment on its own soil, he said, “Iran is buying more time through to complete its nuclear weapons projects”.

“I caution against Tehran’s deceiving remarks. Their actions speak for themselves. So I stress that any further delay in referring the clerical regime’s nuclear file to the United Nations Security Council has a real danger in it for world peace and security”.

Abedini said that the time had come for the Security Council to “adopt comprehensive sanctions against the clerical regime without any further delay”.