Despite much cynicism about the real goal of its enrichment programme, Iran remains defiant and determined to press on.
Iran was in a defiant mood in late August. On the eve of the start of official operations at the Bushehr reactor, the Middle East’s first nuclear power plant, the government announced that it had launched a new missile. Iranian officials said that the test demonstrated the country’s determination to continue its nuclear programme regardless of UN sanctions. Iran has already developed weapons with a long enough range to reach Israel and eastern Europe; some are thought to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
The country’s continued refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, which it insists is for civilian and not military purposes, has led to the imposition of four rounds of sanctions by the UN Security Council since December 2006. The latest sanctions target the military spending, trade and financial transactions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps which controls the nuclear programme. In July, the US barred access to financial institutions and energy firms doing business in Iran and the EU followed suit, placing restrictions on foreign trade, financial services and the oil and gas sectors.
The Bushehr plant was exempted from the last set of sanctions as part of a deal to secure Russian support. Russia’s state-owned Rosatom will supply uranium for the plant and take the spent fuel back, allaying US and European fears that the plant could be used in the production of a nuclear bomb.
In July, Tehran agreed to the resumption of renewed discussions with the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, UK and USA) scheduled to take place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York in September. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, has said that his country was prepared to reconsider its controversial decision to enrich uranium to 20 percent (above which it is classed as weapons-grade) provided that it was guaranteed a supply of nuclear fuel.
