Iran says nuclear fuel is for future

TEHRAN —  Iran’s top leader said Saturday that the country’s oil and gas reserves eventually will dry up and defended the drive to produce nuclear fuel, asserting that it was the only way to avoid dependence on the West for energy.

“Oil and gas reserves won’t last forever. If a nation doesn’t think of producing its future energy needs, it will be dependent on domination-seeking powers,” state television quoted supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying. He is Iran’s spiritual, political and military chief.

Iran produces 4.2 million barrels of oil per day, making it the second-largest exporter of crude among the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. It has the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves.

The country’s recoverable oil reserves are estimated at 137 billion barrels, or 12% of the world’s overall reserves. Iran’s gas reserves are believed to be 28 trillion cubic meters.

The United States and its European allies dispute Iran’s contention that its nuclear program is only for producing fuel and not for making weapons.

Khamenei said those who say Iran does not need nuclear technology are “shallow-minded.”

A U.S. defense official said Saturday that Washington was not seeking military confrontation or regime change in Iran, despite Tehran’s defiance of international demands to halt uranium enrichment.

Speaking at a weapons conference in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi, Mark Kimmitt, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Middle East, said an “increasingly belligerent Iran” believes that it can “control, threaten and intimidate.”

But Kimmitt, a former U.S. Army brigadier general, said he believed “diplomacy is the best solution” to the Iran dispute.