Iran warns of fierce response to any attack
Pastor Dale Morgan
Iran warns of fierce response to any attack*
MADRID, SPAIN Jul 02 2008 17:51
Iran warned on Wednesday of a fierce response and radically higher oil
prices if the country was attacked, but also signalled possible progress
in its five-year nuclear stand-off with the West.
"Iran, if there were any kind of activity of any sort, is not going to
be quiet and would react fiercely," Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein
Nozari said when asked what Tehran would do in the event of an attack.
He added that oil prices, which have been driven to record levels partly
because of fear about the loss of Iran's four-million-barrel-a-day
output, would rise radically if Israel or the United States launched a
military strike.
His comments on the sidelines of an oil conference in Madrid came as
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, speaking to US media, said that a
"new process" was under way in the dispute about the country's nuclear
programme.
The news was greeted with scepticism by Washington but more positively
in Brussels where European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana
described it as "interesting".
Six world powers last month came up with a solution for ending the
crisis, offering technological incentives in exchange for Tehran
suspending uranium enrichment, which the West fears could be used to
make an atomic bomb.
Iran has unveiled its own package, which is a more all-embracing effort
to solve global problems and notably suggests the setting up of a
consortium in Iran for enriching uranium.
"A process is under way and it started with the package delivered by
Iran," Mottaki said in an interview with US media in New York, according
to the state-run IRNA news agency.
"This package tackled important questions, and then on the other side
the world powers offered their own package," he said.
There has been a surge in speculation recently that Israel might be
planning a military strike against Iran's nuclear sites after it emerged
that Israel fighter planes had carried out practice runs.
But recent reports in Western media have also suggested that Tehran is
ready to adopt a softer line in the stand-off and may be prepared to
offer concessions to break the deadlock.
The foreign policy adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said
on Tuesday it would be in Iran's interest to accept the package and
warned against provocative remarks that could destabilise the situation.
The White House said on Wednesday that it was sceptical about Mottaki's
comments and President George Bush again stressed that military action
was possible despite his preference for diplomacy.
"I have always said that all options are on the table but the first
option for the United States is to solve this problem diplomatically,"
Bush told reporters in the White House Rose Garden.
Top US military chiefs said on Wednesday that opening up a third front
against Iran in addition to Iraq and Afghanistan would be "extremely
stressful".
No Iranian official has suggested in the past months that Tehran is
ready to give any ground on the key question of enrichment, which Iran
must suspend in order to enter the talks offered by the world powers.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had repeatedly vowed that Iran will never
halt enrichment operations and Khamenei himself has said many times over
the past years that Tehran will not back down.
Iran insists its atomic drive is entirely peaceful and it needs nuclear
energy for a growing population whose fossil fuels will eventually run
out. -- AFP