Washington turns up heat on mullahs
Tehran put 'on notice': U.S. accuses Iran of nuclear ambitions, support for terrorists
Araminta Wordsworth
National Post, with files from news services
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
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In an escalating war of words, the United States traded warnings with Iran yesterday over Washington's charges Tehran is sheltering terrorists and covertly trying to build nuclear weapons.
In Washington, a senior Democratic senator pointed out the White House already has its hands full, with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and looming summits on the Middle East.
"I don't think we should be biting off more than we can chew right now," said Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But Bush administration officials continued to go on the offensive.
Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, warned Iran that interference in Iraq by its neighbours or its proxies will not be permitted.
"Indeed, Iran should be on notice: Efforts to try to remake Iraq in Iran's image will be aggressively put down," he said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The United States claims Tehran is seeking to influence events in Iraq while sheltering senior al-Qaeda leaders and developing nuclear weapons.
The Washington Post reported over the weekend the Bush administration was considering "public and private" actions to destabilize Iran's Islamic regime, including supporting a rebellion.
Washington continues to believe Iranian clerics were linked to the terrorists responsible for May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh that killed 34 people.
U.S. military officials also say Iranian elements are interfering with the post-war recovery in Iraq.
"Some portions of Iranian-backed forces and organizations in Iraq are now trying to influence events there for the coalition's detriment," General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Monday.
For its part, Iran warned Washington to stay out of its internal affairs.
"We hope logic and reason will prevail in the Americans' debates and that they will avoid taking an interventionist stance," said Hamid Reza Assefi, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Reacting to media accounts of the new White House policy, Mr. Assefi said, "We do not know to what degree this information is true. But we have always told the Americans to avoid meddling in our internal affairs."
Iran has frequently denied it is harbouring terrorists.
"[There] has hardly been any time in the past 14 or 15 months when we did not have somebody from al-Qaeda or connected to al-Qaeda in prison in Iran," said Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, speaking to CNN's Newsnight by phone from Tehran.
"We have expelled, extradited, kept in prisons hundreds of al-Qaeda people in the last 15 months. Probably we have extradited more al-Qaeda people to European and Arab countries than anybody else."
Relations between Iran and the United States have long been thorny.
The two countries severed diplomatic ties after the Shah was toppled in the Islamic revolution in 1979. Last year, George W. Bush, the U.S. President, labelled the country part of an "axis of evil" along with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea.
U.S. officials are also increasingly worried about Iran's nuclear program, which is being developed with help from Russia.
"We continue to have concerns that a nation that is awash in gas and oil would seek to produce peaceful nuclear energy," said Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman.
Iran "flares off," that is, burns as a waste product, more natural gas than the electrical energy it would produce from nuclear reactors, he added.
Iran claims it is building the Bushehr nuclear reactor for purely peaceful purposes, such as generating electricity.
The U.S. view was boosted this week by fresh revelations from an Iranian opposition group.
The National Council for Resistance of Iran claims the country has two previously undisclosed uranium enrichment facilities about 65 kilometres west of Tehran.
Spokesmen for the council said they learned of the existence of the facilities through allies inside Iran.
"It's time for U.S. policy to be clear and firm against the Iranian regime," Alireza Jafarzadeh said.
In Moscow, the Russian Nuclear Energy Minister made it clear his government would not drop plans to build Iran's first nuclear plant.
"Russia does not see any reason now to review its stance and its role regarding construction of the first nuclear reactor," Alexander Rumyantsev said after talks with visiting Iranian nuclear officials on Monday.
Russia says it is providing Iran only with civilian nuclear equipment, adding the used fuel from the 1,000-megawatt Bushehr plant will be shipped back to Russia for reprocessing, making it impossible for Iran to use the material to make weapons.
"We will continue to fulfill our duties despite the fact that our position on this question is different to Washington's official view," Mr. Rumyantsev said.
But in a sign Moscow may have started to heed Washington's concerns, Russian officials have urged more transparency on nuclear matters from Iran.
It has also asked Iran to provide guarantees it is not using its atomic energy program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons.
At a meeting with Gholamreza Shafei, Iran's ambassador to Moscow, Georgy Mamedov, the deputy foreign minister, said he was concerned about the existence of "serious unresolved questions in connection with Iran's nuclear research."
The heat on Iran is likely to be turned up further on June 16 if, as Washington hopes, the International Atomic Energy Agency signals grave doubts Iran's ambitious network of nuclear facilities is merely designed for power generation.
awordsworth@nationalpost.com
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