TEHRAN— Iran’s nuclear chief says that having access to nuclear fuel brings power.

Speaking among the education ministry officials on Sunday, Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said mastering the technology to enrich nuclear fuel is “a power-generating cycle.”

However, he pointed out, Western countries have used the notion of “atomic bomb” against Iran as an excuse. 

“Their opposition to heavy water (production in Iran) is because the production of heavy water represents scientific power,” the nuclear chief opined. 

Western countries, Eslami believes, oppose Iran's mastery of new technologies because they place Tehran at the top of the pyramid of scientifically powerful countries.

“Before the (Islamic) Revolution, they prevented Iran from entering (nuclear) power-generating countries. They always asked Iran to be among the countries that buys nuclear fuel so that Iran remains a consumer of nuclear fuel and not to be a producer of nuclear fuel so that power would not be in Iran's hands,” the AEOI chief asserted. 

“We were able to achieve what Western countries thought would take 15 years to reach in less than a year and a few months,” Eslami concluded.