AFP
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Iran on Thursday kicked off a series of anniversary festivities
for the Islamic revolution by shrugging off UN sanctions over
its nuclear programme and urging national unity against US "conspiracies".
Iranian officials have promised a major announcement of progress
in its controversial programme during the 10-day celebration,
but leaders first focused on emphasising Iran's defiance in the
nuclear standoff and its position of strength.
"The language of sanctions belongs to the past," President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said as he paid tribute at the shrine of the
1979 revolution's late founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the
IRNA news agency reported.
"Iran is a powerful nation with extensive ties and other
nations will support us even if they are pressured," he added
at the shrine, flanked by Khomeini's grandson Hassan.
Sanctions "will not affect a great nation. We have expanding
economic ties and they can, at most, be just an irritation to
our people.
"Our nation has always moved in a lawful, peaceful direction
and it seeks to exercise its definitive inalienable rights,"
said Ahmadinejad, referring to Iran's oft-repeated insistence
that it will not halt uranium enrichment.
Tehran has defied calls to suspend the enrichment work, rejecting
US allegations it wants nuclear weapons and insisting its atomic
drive is solely aimed at producing nuclear energy.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution in December imposing
sanctions on Iran for its refusal to freeze enrichment although
the measures are not seen as far-reaching enough to hurt Iran's
wider economy.
Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a still powerful cleric
who heads Iran's main political arbitration body, warned the country
to beware of foreign plots to divide Iranians.
"We have the experience that when our revolution triumphed
it was because we we were all united," Rafsanjani told thousands
of the faithful packed into Khomeini's massive shrine on the outskirts
of Tehran.
"With this experience, we should not play into the hands
of foreign enemies and US conspiracies. Differences between ethnicities
and religious groups is just what the enemy wants ...
"They want to say that we are disunited. But they will learn
their lesson on February 11 when the people come to the streets
and defend our nuclear right and show there are no differences
among us," he said.
Iranians are to hold mass rallies across the country on that
day in support of the revolution, and Ahmadinejad is expected
to speak at Tehran's Freedom Square as a 100-strong orchestra
plays a "nuclear symphony".
It remains unclear however exactly what announcement will be
made on Iran's nuclear programme amid conflicting comments by
officials.
The Islamic republic has said it wants to install 3,000 uranium-enriching
centrifuges at a key nuclear plant but it remains a mystery how
far it has progressed with this work or if it has even started.
The revolutionary celebrations started at 9:33 (0603 GMT) on
Thursday, marking the exact time when an Air France jet touched
down at Tehran airport bringing Khomeini back from exile in France.
School and church bells tolled while trains and ships sounded
their horns continuously to mark the moment. Khomenei's successor
as supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also visited the shrine
in the early morning.
Flowers were then thrown on the spot at the adjacent Behesht-e
Zahra cemetery, where Khomeini rushed after arriving back from
France to tell throngs of supporters of his vision of an Islamic
state.
Ahmadinejad said the Islamic republic had now become a "model"
for the rest of the world.
"Big powers are very worried about our nation's scientific
progress. They want to convince people that governments built
on religion... cannot respond to modern problems."
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