Iran slams Chirac's comments on Tehran's nuclear program

A senior Iranian cleric this weekend slammed French President Jacques Chirac for comments he made on Iran's nuclear program in a Friday interview to Haaretz.

"The possibility that Iran will equip itself with nuclear weaponry is unacceptable to France, its partners and the entire world," Chirac told Haaretz. When asked on the possibility of imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic if it chooses to ignore international demands, he went beyond his previous statements in the firmness of his response.

"We are demanding of Iran concrete guarantees that its nuclear program will be restricted to peaceful and civilian purposes," he said. "If this does not prove to be the case, it will of course be necessary to transfer the handling [of the Iranian problem] to the UN Security Council."

Military actions, however, "are not a solution, whatever the problem," the French President said.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in reaction that he could not tell how accurate the interview was since "it was made to an Israeli daily."

But Asefi said that European countries "should not use threatening language against Iran, because it is useless."

Furthermore, the Iranian national news agency, IRNA, published an analysis article stating that Chirac led to the deterioration of the relations between Tehran, London and Berlin. The comments given to Haaretz, the article said, were "the first time Chirac warned Tehran of the possibility of imposing sanctions. So far, the European trio (Paris, London and Berlin) resisted American pressure to pass the Iranian question to the Security Council."

"Less than two weeks after the swearing in of Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," the analysis read, "the relations between Tehran and its key partners in the negotiations on the future of the Iranian nuclear program have crossed the 'turbulence area.'"

Quoting Ahmadinejad, IRNA wrote that "just as much as we hate weapons of mass destruction, we hate it when people try to deny our legitimate right to use nuclear technologies for peaceful ends."

Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told worshippers at Friday prayers at Tehran University: "We will never abandon our obvious right, otherwise it will be a stain of shame on our history."