March 25, 2022
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi says Iran’s enemies are seeking to deprive Iranians of peaceful nuclear energy, although the United States said more than a decade ago that it had no problem with Iran having nuclear electricity generating plants like the one at Bushehr as long as the fuel was supplied from abroad, as it is now by Russia.
He made the remarks in a meeting via video conference with thousands of people from East Azerbaijan Province marking the anniversary of the popular uprising in Tabriz that took place February 18, 1978.
“You see how oppressively the enemy front is focusing on the issue of our nuclear energy. They [the enemy] impose sanctions because of a nuclear energy [program] they know is peaceful. And whatever they may say about Iran being a certain amount of time away from producing a [nuclear] bomb is nonsensical and meaningless,” Khamenehi said.
“They know we are not seeking [nuclear weapons], that we are not looking for a nuclear weapon. We are looking to benefit from nuclear energy in peaceful ways. They know this. [But] they do not want the Iranian nation to achieve such an outstanding scientific progress and that’s why they are pressuring us,” Khamenehi said.
But the United States does not oppose any country having nuclear power and has, in fact, promoted the use of nuclear reactors for electricity generation.
Khamenehi argued that Iran will urgently need nuclear energy, and that, if the country fails to take action today, it will be too late in 20 years. Actually, Iran will still have plenty of oil and gas in 20 years to run power plants and that oil and gas will be much, much cheaper than uranium, which Iran will have to import.
The Supreme Leader praised as “astonishing” the infrastructural progress that the country has made in the years since the Islamic Revolution.
He pointed to Iran’s scientific achievements in the past four decades and said the country’s growth rate has been “multiple times higher than that of the rest of the world.” Iran’s gross domestic product has grown on an average of 2 percent per year since the revolution, while the global average has been 2.72 percent over those same years.
The Leader said the nation’s perseverance has been fruitful not just inside the country but also across the region.
“You witness today that the resistance movement in regional countries is growing and the grandeur of America and [global] arrogance is broken. Nations are speaking out against America. We should appreciate this and keep up the Revolution’s progress,” he said.