Nuclear threats to Iran

Iran will take legal action over infringements on its rights to develop nuclear power, the country's foreign minister said Tuesday, a day after the country announced plans to build 10 new nuclear plants.

"We will not do away with our rights," Foreign Minister Ramin Mohnmanparas said at a news conference, without clarifying what legal action meant.

He did say that Iran would write letters of protest to nations that backed a U.N. resolution of rebuke over Iran's nuclear program.

Mohnmanparas accused such countries of politicizing nuclear fuel as a way to meddle in his country's domestic affairs.

"We will elaborate on why their decisions were incorrect, and how to correct and what the consequences might be," he said of the letters.
The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Friday passed a resolution demanding that Iran stop construction on a once-secret nuclear enrichment facility in the Iranian holy city of Qom. Twenty-five countries backed the measure, which also demanded that Iran stop uranium enrichment, which can be used for producing fuel for a nuclear device.

In the resolution's wake, Iran's state news agency reported Sunday that the nation's Cabinet had authorized the construction of 10 new nuclear production facilities.

At Tuesday's news conference in the Iranian capital, Tehran, Mohnmanparas said his country needs nuclear fuel from the plants to meet its long-term energy needs, to move toward self-sufficiency.

"The plans we have, we will push our plans ahead," the foreign minister said. "We will adhere to IAEA framework and under their supervision.

"We remain committed to the NPT," he added, referring to the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, which bars member states from pursuing nuclear weapons and requires international inspectors to have access to nuclear facilities. The treaty gives Iran the right to produce nuclear fuel, Iran says.

Tehran says the plants authorized Sunday would produce enough enriched uranium to yield about 20,000 megawatts of electricity a year. Iran currently has one nuclear power plant, which has yet to begin full operation.

By comparison, 65 nuclear power plants in the United States produced about 800,000 megawatts of power in 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

In his final report to the IAEA's governing board, outgoing Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei said Thursday that the agency has been able to verify that no known stocks of nuclear fuel have been diverted from authorized uses. But he said inspectors "have effectively reached a dead end" without further Iranian cooperation.

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Monday that, in the United States' view, "as Iran makes choices that seem to indicate that it is not at this stage ready and willing to take up the offers on the engagement track, then we will put greater emphasis on the pressure track."

The "pressure track" is often code language for the pursuit of further U.N. Security Council sanctions.