“But it never became real”, he said in the interview, which was carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency on Tuesday.
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“At the time that we started, we were at war, and we were looking to have this capability (a nuclear weapon) for the day that our enemy would want to resort to the nuclear bomb”, Rafsanjani reportedly told IRNA.
“Our basic doctrine was always a peaceful nuclear application, but it never left our mind that if one day we should be threatened and it was imperative, we should be able to go down the other path”, said Rafsanjani, who was parliament speaker during the 1980-88 war and was Iranian president from 1989 to 1997.
The interviewer who is from Rafsanjani’s faction describes him as a “knowledgeable in nuclear science” and writes: “When he talks about laser and nuclear fusion and its difference with nuclear fission, his knowledge on the subject is bewildering although logically one should not be surprised since in the history of nuclear science and the formation of industry in Iran after the Islamic Revolution he surely plays the role of the principal supporter and its founder”.
According to the IRNA interview as reported by NCRI, Rafsanjani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have personally followed up on the project to acquire a nuclear bomb.
Rafsanjani has had a tense relationship with Ayatollah Khamenei and political hardliners after two of his children expressed support for the opposition after a disputed presidential election in 2009.
These statements by Rafsanjani unmistakably reveal regime’s intentions to acquire the nuclear weapon. “In any case, they agreed to help us a bit”, the translation of Rafsanjani’s remarks said. While the U.S. insists on continuous IAEA monitoring of Iran’s nuclear programme, Iran has adopted a law calling for constant surveillance of United States sanctions relief with the aim of ensuring that Washington is meeting its commitments and that the USA is not interfering in the easing or ending of sanctions by other countries. There was a nuclear scientist called Abdul Qadeer Khan in Pakistan…
I have been saying for years that if it had not been for the 2003 Iraq war, then Iran would have pursued its own WMD program with much more vigor.
“Any engagement with the ruling religious fascist regime and its president prevents change in Iran and works against democracy and human rights”, Mrs. Rajavi added.
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While Tehran and the Obama administration are preparing for implementation of the Iran nuclear deal signed in July by the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany, hard line Republicans in the US Congress are gearing up to undermine the agreement. “It’s entirely possible that they are already at threshold status and we will never know it”. “We, of course, have our large military presence in the Persian Gulf, in the Gulf of Aden”, she said. “Ayatollah Khamenei, too, did not meet him”. “The signatories believe that a democratic Iran is the essential requisite for regional stability and to this end, the Iranian Resistance and the ten-point plan of Maryam Rajavi for a democratic, non-nuclear Iran based on separation of religion and state and women’s equality must be supported”.
