Nuclear Iran: where’s the evidence of threat?

YOUR columnist Steven King (May 26) writes that “regime change is then perhaps the only strategy that will deny Iran a nuclear bomb”. The alternative regime he has in mind is one led by the Green movement which, he says, merits our wholehearted support.

This assumes the present Iranian regime is developing nuclear weapons, whereas the International Atomic Energy Agency has found no evidence that Iran has, or ever had, a nuclear weapons programme.

Its latest report last February repeats the message of earlier reports that only low enriched uranium suitable for a power generation reactor is being produced at Iran’s Natanz enrichment plant and that no nuclear material is being diverted from that plant for other purposes, for example, to further enrich uranium to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey, a Sunni Muslim country, doesn’t believe Iran, its Shia neighbour, is developing nuclear weapons.

Here’s what Mr Erdogan told the BBC on March 16:

“Iran has consistently spoken of the fact that it is seeking to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes, that they are using uranium enrichment programmes for civilian purposes only. That’s what Mr Ahmadinejad told me many times before. But it’s not very fair to manipulate this fact and say that Iran has nuclear weapons.”

As for the Green movement, there is no evidence that its attitude to Iran’s nuclear programme differs from the current regime.

Its leader, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, said recently he was opposed to economic sanctions against Iran (Daily Telegraph, May 23).

People like Steven King who say the Green movement merits our wholehearted support should therefore be raising their voices against the present plan led by the US and supported by EU states to ramp up economic sanctions against Iran.

David Morrison

Lansdowne Road

Belfast BT15 4AB