Growing risk of war, Iran party says

The U.S. will push for sanctions against Tehran at the upcoming meeting of the UN Security Council and has not ruled out taking military action to compel Iran’s government to discontinue its uranium enrichment program, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on April 13.

Iran, a signer of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, insists its research is exclusively for peaceful energy purposes, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has said there is no evidence that Iran is attempting to make nuclear weapons.

However, U.S. threats to Iran continue to mount, said the Tudeh Party of Iran in an April 13 statement. The TPI is Iran’s Communist Party.

“The warmongers ruling the U.S.” are attempting to use the nuclear issue “to secure their strategic dominance over the Persian Gulf region and its abundant energy resources,” the TPI said.

The statement added that military threats from the U.S. were nothing new in the region. However, the TPI is “seriously worried” by what has become a “cycle” of provocative statements made by “reactionary circles on both sides of this dangerous standoff.”

“The issue of acquiring nuclear enrichment technology for peaceful use is a national matter, is the right of any developing country,” the TPI statement continued, “but more important is how to deal and cooperate with the international community to facilitate the realization of this right.”

Iran’s rulers are playing into the hands of Western imperialism, the TPI said. It said the government in Tehran has been using the nuclear issue to manipulate the Iranian people into supporting a reactionary regime that would like to push the nation back to a time before there was any legal opposition.

At the same time, the TPI “warns about the vulnerable conditions of the region and calls upon all the national political forces to mobilize the public opinion around revealing the extensive danger that is threatening our nation, independence and integrity, and to prevent implementation of policies that put regional peace and our national interests in danger.”

“Once again we clearly state that we strongly oppose any form and shape of political or military intervention by foreign forces in Iran’s internal affairs,” it said. “As was clearly expressed in the past, we see the way out of the current crisis in avoiding any tense … and hostile encounters. We have to stay away from any step that might increase the risk of war.”