Iran's influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani yesterday said he was sure the Islamic republic's Gulf neighbours would not support any US assault on his country over its nuclear programme. "We are certain that Gulf countries will not back the US in waging an attack on Iran," Rafsanjani said on the second day of a visit to Kuwait aimed at allaying fears in the region over Iran's nuclear activities.
Rafsanjani also called on neighbouring and other Muslim countries to stand by Iran and warned that any attack on Iran would have implications on the rest of the region.
Rafsanjani, who heads Iran's powerful Expediency Council, vowed that Tehran would continue the enrichment of uranium.
He met Kuwaiti deputies after holding talks with the Amir, Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah.
After the talks, Shaikh Sabah expressed hope that Iran's nuclear programme was for peaceful purposes, Kuna reported.
Kuwaiti parliament speaker Jassim Al Khorafi tried to play down the worries in the Gulf over Iran's nuclear facilities, including a reactor being built with Russian help in Bushehr across the Gulf, and its standoff with the West.
But a deputy said Iran had to take practical measures beyond verbal assurances to comfort its Arab neighbours.
Kuwait and other Gulf states are concerned about the possibility that the current standoff may develop into a full-scale military confrontation and fear a possible environmental catastrophe if the Bushehr plant is targeted.
Rafsanjani's visit follows Iran's announcement last week that it had successfully enriched uranium to the level needed to make reactor fuel, triggering global concern about its nuclear ambitions.
A claim, meanwhile, by Iran's president in Tehran his country is conducting tests on a more sophisticated type of nuclear enrichment centrifuge could significantly speed Iran's ability to make fuel for either electrical plants or bombs, analysts familiar with the technology said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told students the Islamic republic was testing the P-2 centrifuge - a more sophisticated type. A day earlier, he had trumpeted Iran's success in enriching a small amount of uranium using a less-sophisticated type of centrifuge.
The president's words were Iran's first acknowledgement that it is working with the faster P-2 - after the country told the UN nuclear watchdog it had given up all such work three years ago. It is not clear if Iran had been doing work all along on the more-sophisticated model, or had recently restarted such work.
In Moscow, Iran's Ambassador to Russia Gholamreza Ansari said his country was prepared for war if attacked over its nuclear programme but was making a "maximum effort" to end the impasse through peaceful negotiation.
lThe Pentagon declined to comment on a report that US military planning for Iran began before the Iraq invasion and has been continually updated since.
PHOTO CAPTION
Former Iranian leader Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (L) walks alongside Kuwait's parliament speaker Jassem Al Kharafi at the national assembly in Kuwait City. (AFP)