| When in doubt, escalate. |
Speaking at the closing ceremony of a conference in Teheran on nuclear technology and sustainable development, Rafsanjani termed sustainable development in the Third World - including the right to pursue modern technologies - as the main basis for peace and stability in the world. "The consequences of non-development would soon reach the First World as well, because everybody asks why the First World should have environmental-friendly energy resources and the others not," Rafsanjani said. He further rejected Western arguments that Iran did not need nuclear energy owing to its huge oil and gas reserves. Iran, he said, had even more oil and gas reserves 30 years ago, but at that time the Germans still started the nuclear power plant in the southern Persian Gulf port of Bushehr.