TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi called on the Islamic Republic on Monday to suspend sensitive nuclear activities to avert a "serious" threat of a U.S. military attack.
By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi called on the Islamic Republic on Monday to suspend sensitive nuclear activities to avert a "serious" threat of a U.S. military attack.
"The drum beat of war can be heard very loudly," Ebadi told a conference of her rights group called "No to war, Yes to peace and human rights," urging all Iranians to support a national campaign aimed at preventing possible U.S. military action.
Speculation has grown that the United States may launch air strikes against Iran over its refusal to suspend sensitive nuclear activities, which the West fears is a cover to build nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear work is peaceful.
!ADVERTISEMENT!"Iran should respect U.N. Security Council resolutions and it means suspending uranium enrichment and resolving the dispute (on the nuclear issue) through talks," Ebadi told reporters after the conference.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has defied international pressure on Iran to suspend enrichment and branded Iranian critics of his nuclear policy as "traitors."
Ebadi, a human rights lawyer who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, warned of an escalating crisis with the international community, saying "the threat of conflict is serious."
Her call on the Iranian leadership to review its hardline nuclear policy, echoed similar statements of the growing number of moderate leaders who believe Iran should return to suspending enrichment, the policy under former President Mohammad Khatami.
Domestic criticism of the handling of Iran's nuclear policy is sensitive because it is considered a matter of national security. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the last say on all state matters, including the nuclear issue.
Iranian officials have dismissed the threat of U.S. military action and Ahmadinejad has called it a U.S. "dream." Iran says it is fully prepared to defend itself, warning Washington of a "quagmire deeper than Iraq."
"AVOID THE WAR"
Ebadi called on Iranians to join a "national peace campaign" to stop the war.
"This campaign will pressure the (Iranian) establishment to prevent a war by accepting international commitments ... and respecting U.N. resolutions," she said.
"We should show the world that Iranians are peace-seekers and want to live in peace not war."
Ahmadinejad has called two sets of U.N. sanction resolutions against Iran "a piece of torn paper."
Ebadi said the government should not "sacrifice" people's other rights for Iran's right to nuclear technology.
"Nuclear technology is Iran's right. But we have other rights that should be preserved, including living in peace," she said.
Leader of Iran's Freedom Movement, a banned liberal party, Ebrahim Yazdi, also warned of the consequences of U.S. military action against Iran.
"We should mobilize people against the war and put pressure on the government to change its nuclear policy," he told the conference. "By suspending enrichment, we can avoid war."
Yazdi, who was a close aide to the Islamic revolution's founding father Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and served as foreign minister in the first post-revolutionary government, said enrichment "was not a matter of national security for Iran."
"The government should consider people's will and avoid a war," he said.
(Writing by Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl, editing by Richard Balmforth)
