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Cuban Parliament Leader Condemns Pressure on Iran Nuclear Program

Posted on: Friday, 17 February 2006, 09:00 CST

Cuban parliament leader condemns pressure on Iran nuclear program

HAVANA, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Cuba rejects the international campaign against Iran's nuclear energy program, President of Cuba's National Assembly of the People told his Iranian counterpart on Thursday.

Ricardo Alarcon met with Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, the leader of Iran's Consultative Islamic Assembly, who arrived here on Thursday morning. The first topic under discussion was the U.S.-led campaign to censure Teheran over its nuclear energy program.

"No one has the right to deny any people the possibility of the peaceful use of nuclear energy," Alarcon said. "What the world should combat precisely is the monopoly that some have over weapons of mass destruction -- nuclear ones in particular."

Twenty-seven of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35 members voted last month to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over fears it aims to develop an atomic bomb. Only Venezuela and Cuba -- along with Syria -- voted against it. The rest abstained.

The United States has repeatedly stressed it wants to settle the dispute over Iran's nuclear program through diplomacy but has not ruled out eventual military action.

Iran believes it is almost impossible that the United States would want to repeat the experience of Iraq, Adel said in reply to a question from a Havana University student.

"We hope the United States is not so stupid," he said, adding that the Iranian people were ready for any attack.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who has already publicly blasted the campaign against the uranium enrichment in the Islamic nation, said Iran has a right to restart its nuclear plants for peaceful purposes.

Alarcon said that such a campaign was unacceptable, especially because it was led by a nation that had used nuclear weapons against a civilian population, referring to the U.S. nuclear bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Haddad applauded the good relations between the two countries, especially their shared positions on various international issues.

He also praised Cuba's technological advancement, some of which he saw during a tour of a center for genetic engineering and biotechnology, one of the projects included by an Iran-Cuba information joint program.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

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