Iran insists satellite launch has no military aim
AFP
Tehran-Aresu Eqbali:Iran insisted on Wednesday that the launch of its first home-built satellite has no military aims, despite deep concerns in the West about the development.
I "This is a scientific and technical achievement and has no military aims," foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi told reporters.
Iran's launch of the Omid (Hope) satellite carried by the home-built Safir-2 rocket on Monday has set alarm bells ringing among Western powers already at loggerheads with Tehran over its nuclear programme.
But hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the move signalled Tehran's technological achievement and was an attempt to break the Western world's monopoly on science.
"We should try to break this scientific monopoly," he said at a seminar on science in Tehran.
"Today science and other technologies are monopolised. We should try to get science out of the control of the arrogant and the selfish," he said, adding the satellite launch had raised Iran's global status a "hundred steps".
The West suspects Iran of secretly trying to build an atomic bomb and fears the technology used to launch a space rocket could be diverted into developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes and that it has the right to technology already in the hands of many other nations, including archfoe the United States.
Iran's launch of the Omid (Hope) satellite carried by the home-built Safir-2 rocket on Monday has set alarm bells ringing among Western powers already at loggerheads with Tehran over its nuclear programme.
But hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the move signalled Tehran's technological achievement and was an attempt to break the Western world's monopoly on science.
"We should try to break this scientific monopoly," he said at a seminar on science in Tehran.
"Today science and other technologies are monopolised. We should try to get science out of the control of the arrogant and the selfish," he said, adding the satellite launch had raised Iran's global status a "hundred steps".
The West suspects Iran of secretly trying to build an atomic bomb and fears the technology used to launch a space rocket could be diverted into developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes and that it has the right to technology already in the hands of many other nations, including archfoe the United States.