(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - More adults in Russia believe Iran is not developing its nuclear program solely for peaceful purposes, according to a poll by the Public Opinion Foundation. 50 per cent of respondents think Iran wants to manufacture nuclear arms, up 15 points since January 2006.

Iran has contended that its nuclear program aims to produce energy, not weapons. In June 2005, former Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won Iran's presidential election in a run-off over Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani with 61.6 per cent of all cast ballots.

In December 2006, the United Nations (UN) Security Council unanimously voted to impose sanctions against Iran after it failed to stop uranium enrichment. On Jan. 2, Ahmadinejad declared, "Let the world know that from the Iranian nation's point of view, this resolution has no validity. I want (the United States) to know that the Iranian nation has humiliated you many times, and it will humiliate you in future."

On Apr. 9, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran is now enriching uranium—a process needed both to make nuclear weapons and produce electricity—in an "industrial scale." Iranian vice-president Gholamreza Aghazadeh discussed the situation, saying, "Now we are entering the mass production of centrifuges and starting to launch industrial scale enrichment, another step toward the flourishing of Islamic Iran."

Yesterday, German defence minister Franz Josef Jung declared: "It is vital for world peace for the United States, Russia, Europe and China to work together. It is also in Russia's interests that Iran does not possess atomic weapons."

Polling Data

One of today's most widely discussed issues is Iran's nuclear program. Iran insists that its nuclear program is intended solely for peaceful purposes, while the West fears that Iran is developing nuclear arms. Would you say Iran is developing its nuclear program solely for peaceful purposes or in order to manufacture nuclear arms?

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