Iranian President Vows to Pursue Nuclear Program

WASHINGTON – After winning an election that three of his challengers have publicly charged was fixed, Iran’s new hard-line president vowed to continue his country’s pursuit of nuclear energy.The Iranian president-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a wide-ranging, nationally televised press conference defended his country’s nuclear energy program saying, “We need this technology for energy and medical purposes. We shall carry on with it.”With the ascendancy of Mr. Ahmadinejad, who currently serves as Tehran’s mayor, European capitals have already expressed concern that Iran may move away from a policy to negotiate an end to the atomic enrichment program that it kept secret from the international community until 2003. His first remarks that the nuclear program is necessary to his country’s peaceful development are similar to those issued by Iranian spokesman and diplomats prior to the election.An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman yesterday claimed that Iran’s policy on this matter had not changed. “We are currently pursuing the policy of trust-building, cooperation, and participation with other nations. We will have more expansion of ties with regional countries. I don’t think with the new president there will be any changes in the macro policies of the regime,” Hamid Reza Asefi said.Under the outgoing president, Mohammed Khatemi, the powers of the president and executive branch proved ultimately beholden to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his appointed guardian council, which vetted the candidates for this month’s election and performed the official vote count.Mr. Ahmadinejad is a founder of what is known as the Jerusalem Force, the special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard charged with supporting terrorists against Israel. In an interview last week, a dissident activist, Ahmad Batebi, said the door to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s mayoral offices in Tehran lists his title as a founder of the Revolutionary Guard unit. Mr. Ahmadinejad is also close to the state-affiliated militia known as the Basij. These ultra-religious youth gangs have been employed against demonstrations at universities and other opposition gatherings.Despite such hard-line credentials, yesterday, the president-elect outwardly took a moderate line. When asked by an Iranian reporter, who, according to the Associated Press was wearing a colorful head covering, whether he would impose new dress codes on women, Mr. Ahmadinejad said his powers did not extend to this matter.Nonetheless, since the elections this week, state actions against the democracy movement in Iran have intensified. Four newspapers last week were shut down after printing a letter from another presidential candidate, Mehdi Karrubi, that accused the guardian council and the Basij of rigging the election in favor of Mr. Ahmadinejad. Last week, the wife of a dissident journalist, Akbar Ganji, who urged a boycott of the first round of presidential elections on June 17, said that her husband’s jailors at Evin prison had placed a violent criminal in his cell area.Speaking on Fox News yesterday, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld called the Iranian vote a “mock election.” He added, “He is a person who is very much supportive of the current ayatollahs, who are telling the people of that country how to live their lives, and my guess is over time the young people and women will find him as well as his masters unacceptable.”A Persian blogger, who goes by the alias Mr. Behi, wrote over the weekend: “The most radical portion of the population with the most dangerous Islamic fundamentalist ideas are now in charge. Bad days to come.”The Israeli foreign minister, Sylvan Shalom, yesterday said the new elections underscored the need for the Western world to unite behind a stern policy to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. “We must ensure that modern Western countries do not become hostage to Iranian radicalism,” he told reporters in Israel.

Iranian President Vows to Pursue Nuclear Program

Iranian President Vows to Pursue Nuclear Program

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