Islam forbids atomic weapons and other arms of mass destruction, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on Wednesday ahead of his country’s nuclear talks with world powers in Baghdad.
“Based on Islamic teachings and the clear fatwa (edict) of the supreme leader, the production and use of weapons of mass destruction is haram (forbidden) and have no place in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s defence doctrine,” he said.
Ahmadinejad’s message was read out at a conference in the western city of Borujerd to commemorate Iranian victims of chemical weapons during a 1980-1988 war against Iraq, the official news agency IRNA reported.
World powers were to hold crunch talks in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday with Iran to try to persuade Tehran to suspend sensitive nuclear work.
Ahmadinejad’s mention of a fatwa against nuclear weapons by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, referred to an edict which officials say he laid down in either 2004 or 2005.
Though no published fatwa exists, Iranian scholars point out that declarations by prominent ayatollahs can later take on the weight of a fatwa.
Khamenei has spoken out against nuclear weapons on several occasions, most recently on February 22 when he said that possessing an atomic bomb “constitutes a major sin.”
“The Iranian nation has never been seeking an atomic weapon and never will be,” while developing nuclear energy was in Iran’s interest, he said. The United States has seized on Khamenei’s stance as a possible basis to resolve the dangerous standoff with Iran.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month that Iranian officials “point to a fatwa that the supreme leader has issued against the pursuit of nuclear weapons.”
World powers expect Tehran to back up that position by demonstrating “clearly in the actions they propose that they have truly abandoned any nuclear weapons ambition,” she said.
Iran makes counter-proposal in nuclear talks
Iran made a counter-proposal to the P5+1 group of world powers during talks between the two sides over its nuclear programme on Wednesday, and talks will run into a second day, an Iranian official said. “Iran proposed a package with five items based on the principles of step-by-step and reciprocity, and we are waiting for the reaction of the P5+1 during meetings this afternoon,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official said talks would continue Wednesday evening and into Thursday. Iran was to continue its negotiations with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and China’s delegation to the talks. Neither the United States nor Iran broached the subject of bilateral talks, the official added.
