Nuclear progress guarantees Iran’s survival – top cleric

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Mar. 07 – A top Ayatollah told theologians of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, an exclusively clerical body that designates the country’s all-powerful Supreme Leader, on Tuesday that Iran’s nuclear pursuit “guarantees” the existence of the Islamic Republic. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Mar. 07 – A top Ayatollah told theologians of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, an exclusively clerical body that designates the country’s all-powerful Supreme Leader, on Tuesday that Iran’s nuclear pursuit “guarantees” the existence of the Islamic Republic.

“The continuation of Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities guarantees Iran’s future existence and prosperity”, Speaker Ayatollah Ali Meshkini said in his inaugural address.

Meshkini said that Europe was walking in the steps of the “Great Satan” (United States) by siding with Washington over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The senior Ayatollah also took a jab at U.S. President George W. Bush, describing his election as the “greatest loss” for the American people.

In other parts of his speech, he claimed that the recent bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra was a “plot by the occupiers of Iraq as well as Israel”.

In February, Iran Focus obtained an exclusive list of senior officials of the clerical regime which included Meshkini and the personal fortune each one had amassed. Meshkini was number four in the rich-list. In a country where many of the theocracy’s ruling elite are in-laws, Meshkini is father in law to Mohammad Reyshahri, the Islamic Republic’s first Minister of Intelligence and Security. Meshkini’s personal wealth, coming in from mostly sugar trade and the sale of industrial-scale printers, is well above three trillion Rials, the equivalent of $330 million.