TEHRAN, April 12 (UPI) -- A day after announcing his country's enrichment success, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for stripping corrupt powers of their nuclear weapons.
Iranian news agency IRNA Wednesday quoted Ahmadinejad as hailing Iran's success in enriching uranium, but warned that "certain powers used their capitals and finances to serve science that harmed the interests of humanity.
"For this reason, we call for stripping these corrupt forces of their nuclear weapons," Ahmadinejad said, without identifying the alleged powers.
"Our people affirm that they will use nuclear energy for peaceful objective, and consider this new victory as a preface to many other victories for the Iranian people," Ahmadinejad said.
Speaking on the third day of a visit to the province of Kharasan in northeast Iran, he said "science should be employed and used to serve humanity," stressing that "science must be in safe, pious and good hands in order to be used in the service of humanity."
Ahmadinejad warned against having arrogant and evil nations gain control of science which they will use to achieve their evil objectives, stressing that Iran "is about to acquire useful science and technology which will lead to peace, stability and justice to the peoples and avert attacks by arrogant powers."
In another development, senior cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said Wednesday that the success of the dialogue with Washington over Iraq may pave the way for talks on other subjects.
Rafsanjani was quoted in the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat as saying "the subject at stake for now is Iraq, but there are many cases in which big matters started from small scales."
He stressed, however, that there is no Iranian plan to discuss the nuclear file with the Americans.
