Supreme leader reiterates Iran's opposition to nuclear weaponst

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei once again underscored Iran's firm and steadfast opposition to the possession, production and use of the nuclear weapons, and stressed that Tehran doesn’t pursue such weapons, not for the US pressures, but because they run counter to religious rules. "We don’t accept nuclear weapons, not for the sake of the US or others (pressures), but because of our beliefs, and when we say that no one should have nuclear weapons, certainly we are not after them either," Ayatollah Khamenei said, addressing high-ranking commanders and veterans of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in Tehran on Tuesday. Meantime, he said Iran's foes are opposing its activity in the field of the civilian nuclear technology in a bid to hinder Iran's progress and meantime protect their monopoly over nuclear technology. "These few states don’t want a break in their monopoly in area of the nuclear energy, yet this is not the cause of their hues and cries," Ayatollah Khamenei said, and explained that their opposition and ballyhoo against Iran's nuclear program should be realized and analyzed within the framework of the hegemonic powers' long-time, strong challenge with the Islamic Revolution. Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Several years ago Ayatollah Khamenei issued a Fatwa (religious decree) to ban the possession, production and use of the nuclear weapons. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and western embargos for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path. The Islamic Republic says that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of IAEA's questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities. Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.