TEHRAN, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- A recent opinion poll in Iran shows that a vast majority of respondents wants the country to pursue its nuclear program. About 85 percent of more than 1,300 people asked said Iran should ignore international pressures aimed at forcing it to abandon the program.
Some 11 percent of the respondents said Iran did not need nuclear energy as it already has enough oil and gas to meet its requirements.
Iranian officials, while talking to reporters in Tehran, also appeared divided over how to respond to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has urged Iran to open its nuclear facilities for inspection.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami told reporters in Tehran this week that a majority of Iranians wants their country to pursue a peaceful nuclear program. But the Iranian president also assured the world that the country has no plan to produce nuclear weapons anyway. Iran, he said, would do everything possible -- short of compromising "our national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity" -- to convince the world of its good intentions.
"We will continue to extend every cooperation to assure the world that we are not pursuing nuclear weapons, which truly we are not," Khatami said. His assurance confirms earlier pledges by Iranian officials that they would cooperate fully with U.N. inspector who arrived in the country last week.
But a recent opinion poll, conducted by the Iran Student Polling Agency, reflects a different mood. About 85 percent of the 1,355 respondents said they wanted Iran to continue its nuclear activities, says a report published Tuesday in the Iranian media.
The report also said that 11.2 percent of the participants were opposed to Iran's aim of producing electricity through nuclear means, because they believed the country already has enough oil and gas resources for this purpose.
Khatami, however, rejected this minority opinion. "The Iranian nation and the government are both determined not to hesitate in getting access to the latest scientific and technological achievements," he told an inaugural ceremony at a 400-megawatt power station in southwestern Khuzestan province.
But he then hastened to assure the international community that a state, "which relies on the power of people does not need any atomic or mass destruction weapons."
His Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi went a step ahead and announced this week that Iran would continue enriching uranium for generating nuclear energy.
"We will not allow anyone to deprive us of our right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and in particular of our right to enrich fuel for our power stations," he said, apparently in reference to Iran's previously announced intention to produce 7,000-8,000 megawatts of nuclear-generated electricity by 2020.
Skeptics, in particular the United States, however, fear Iran could use its enrichment plants to make fissile material for nuclear bombs.
On Sept. 12, the Board of Governors of the IAEA passed a tough resolution, giving Iran until Oct. 31 to comply with a list of demands. The agency wants Iran to provide detailed information on its nuclear facilities and equipment and to suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment. The agency also wants Iran to sign an additional protocol to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which would give U.N. inspectors the right of snap inspections.
During the previous year, Iran had to declare to the IAEA the existence of some important nuclear facilities and material but only after the news leaked from other sources. They included two uranium-enrichment plants, one at the central city of Natanz, 160 miles south of Tehran, and the other at a location 10 miles west of the capital, known as Kala-ye-Electric Company. A heavy-water production facility at Arak, waste facilities at Anarak and Qom -- all in central Iran -- and the existence of some nuclear equipment were also among the declarations.
Iran's representative to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi told the agency while releasing the data that his country was submitted a list of components it had received from third parties.
"We have already given a list of imported parts that were not bought officially -- they were bought through intermediaries -- and we are in the process of finishing the list," Salehi said, adding that it was not possible to trace the intermediaries.
Besides supplying the list, he said, Iran would also show IAEA inspectors where the parts were stored.
On arranged inspections to Iranian facilities this year, IAEA inspectors found traces of arms-grade enriched uranium at the Natanz and Kala-ye Electric sites, sparking suspicions that the country was seeking to build a nuclear bomb. Iran blamed the findings on contamination from machinery bought on the black market, a claim U.N. and other experts said could not be discounted.
However, to verify Iran's claims about its controversial uranium-enrichment program, the IAEA says it would have to inspect facilities other than those declared officially as nuclear sites.
"If we cannot have full cooperation, full disclosure, unfortunately I'll have to say that I am not able to verify the Iranian statement" that their nuclear program is purely peaceful, said IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei before U.N. inspectors arrived in Iran on Oct. 2.
He also said that Iran's signing the additional protocol was not his primary concern, rather "my number one priority is to resolve past outstanding issues, mainly the enrichment program."
Those suspicious of Iran's intentions say that Tehran is seeking to put conditions on the signing of the protocol that would allow snap inspections.
The Iranians, however, say that no matter what they sign and however much they opens their facilities to inspection, the United States is not going to believe that the clerical regime is pursuing peaceful plans at its nuclear facilities.
