Iranian President Hassan Rouhani Insists on Right to Enrich Uranium

Nuclear Demand: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York for the first time on Tuesday. Image by JTA/UN

By JTA September 24, 2013

WASHINGTON — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pledged to prove that his country’s nuclear program is peaceful but insisted on Iran’s right to enrich uranium.

Rouhani, elected this summer and speaking Tuesday for the first time as president to the U.N. General Assembly, said the Iranian ethos and Muslim precepts demanded that “we remove all concerns about Iran’s nuclear program,” and he pledged to “remove mutual uncertainties with full transparency.”

However, he also said that this was only possible if Iran’s right to continue uranium enrichment for what he said were peaceful purposes is guaranteed.

Israel insists that any diplomatic solution to tensions with Iran include the full removal of its capacity for enrichment. The United States and other Western nations reportedly are ready to accommodate a degree of enrichment well short of levels needed for weaponization.

Rouhani did not directly respond to President Obama’s offer made earlier in the day to engage directly on the issue, although he noted it and said he believed in “constructive engagement with other countries.”

He called on Washington to “refrain from following the shortsighted interests of war-mongering pressure groups.”

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