NCRI – Remarks by mullahs’ President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday, February 7, regarding the production of 20 percent enriched uranium and his admission that the regime possesses laser enrichment technology are a foolish crack at blackmail and a despicable preemptive bid to evade the imposition of international sanctions. Faced with the nationwide uprising of the Iranian people and caught in a downward spiral towards its imminent downfall, the desperate clerical regime needs nuclear weapons for its survival.
Ahmadinejad on Sunday officially ordered the head of the mullahs’ Atomic Energy Organization to start producing 20 percent enriched uranium. Speaking at the “Exhibition on the Achievements of the Laser Sciences and Technology Center of Iran,” Ahmadinejad said, “Using laser and with precision, high speed, and the appropriate quality, uranium can be enriched at various levels… Of course, Iran does not intend to use laser in this area. With the help of God, we will start enriching uranium to 20 percent with the existing centrifuges and thereby fulfill our needs.”
Ahmadinejad, the mullahs’ Supreme Leader’s puppet, falsely claimed that the achievements displayed during the exhibition “represent the outcome of 2-3 years of efforts by our country’s scientists, while it took others to come to the same level of accomplishments more than 20 years” (Fars news agency, February 7, 2010).
Ahmadinejad’s transparent lies about the regime’s laser achievements and its rejection to use laser technology for uranium enrichment come even as the history of the regime’s activities in the field of laser enrichment dates back to years ago and the Iranian Resistance has exposed the clerical regime’s projects on laser enrichment on a number of occasions, including:
• In May 2003, the Iranian Resistance exposed for the first time at a press conference the enrichment project going on at the Lashgar-Abad site near Karaj, West of Tehran, which is affiliated with the Atomic Energy Organization. After a 2004 inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it was discovered that work was being done at the site on a laser enrichment project. The Head of Laser Research at this site was identified as Jamshid Sabbaghzadeh, who along with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, is a professor of nuclear physics at the so-called “Imam Hussein” university, affiliated with the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
• In November 2004, at a press conference in Paris, the Iranian Resistance exposed the laser enrichment project at the Center for Readiness and New Defense Technology (Lavizan 2) and Parchin. It was revealed at that press conference that laser enrichment was being carried out under the supervision of the mullahs’ Defense Ministry.
• In March 2005, at a press conference in Washington, it was revealed that at a secret tunnel in Parchin, work was being conducted on a laser enrichment project under the direction of Mohammad Amin Bassam, one of the regime’s nuclear technology experts at the Defense Ministry.
• In September 2006, the Iranian Resistance announced in the US that despite the clerical regime’s declaration to the IAEA about shutting down laser activities at the Lashgar-Abad site, its Atomic Energy Organization has renewed operations for the project under the guidance of Jamshid Sabbaghzadeh.
• In February 2008, Mr. Mohammad Mohaddessin, Chair of the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee, exposed the command and development for nuclear weapons at the Mojdeh site, along with its various components, which included laser enrichment.
The activities of the regime’s Defense Ministry and IRGC throughout the years using laser technology had the objective of acquiring the necessary material for the production of nuclear weapons. These activities are being conducted at Tehran’s Pardis site at the Malek-e Ashtar University.
Today, all indications points to the fact that the clerical regime is pressing ahead with its ominous nuclear activities without any regard to international resolutions and calls to cease its nuclear projects. With characteristic bullying and callousness, the ruling clerics now boast about making 20 percent nuclear fuel. In such circumstances, any negotiations with the regime on its nuclear projects will not only fail to yield positive results, but it will reward the regime with even more time it requires for the production of nuclear weapons.
It is high time for the international community to recognize the urgent threat that would emanate from a nuclear-armed Iranian regime and impose comprehensive arms, oil, technological, and diplomatic sanctions on the regime as the first immediate and crucial step for preventing it from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 8, 2010