EUROPEUS

“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Western nations Tuesday to stop their own enrichment programs if they wanted his country to stop its own and return to negotiations. Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in northern Iran one day ahead of a U.N. Security Council deadline that it was no problem for his country to stop, as long as western nations did the same. “Justice demands that those who want to hold talks with us shut down their nuclear fuel cycle program too,” he said. “Then, we can hold dialogue under a fair atmosphere.” (by Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press Writer, Tehran, Iran)

This is just another Iranian attempt to fool the world. It is common ground that Iran is working now for some 20 years on the nuclear enrichment program and experts such as Hans Rühle, the former chief of planning in the German defence department, estimate that Iran will be producing highly enriched Plutonium for 25 to 70 nuclear bombs within the next 15 months (http://www.nzz.ch/2007/02/21/al/articleEXDNX.html). Iran has never denied its tactics. Back in August 2005, the former Iranian chief negotiator Hussein Musavian, explained: «Thanks to the negotiations with the Europeans and a 50 days ultimatum, we were able to continue our work [on the nuclear enrichment program] for two more years.»

Iran is working hard on the nuclear bomb. Ahmadjineded has expressed so many times the purpose of this program ("upon completion of the current stage [the nuclear enrichment program], the elimination of the regime in Jerusalem will be fast and easy”) that one can bet where he will throw the first operational nuclear bomb.

So, the correct news on dpa and dda should have read: “Ahmadjinedad tries to gain more time to complete his nuclear program”. And this reads quite different, doesn’t it?

Kai Littmann is journalist