Head of the Marine Environment Office of the country's Environment Protection Organization (EPO) said here on Friday that no radioactive environment pollution enters the Persian Gulf waters through Iran's soil.
Seyyed Mohammad-Baqer Nabavi told IRNA, "Only some warships in Persian Gulf waters are the source of radioactive pollution there, since their engines run using radioactive fuel, and therefore they can project radioactive rays, but Iran's naval fleet has none of those ships.
Nabavi ruled out the possibility of radioactive pollution through Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor, reiterating, "That reactor functions under direct supervision of the IAEA, and its environmental security standards are fully approved by that agency."
He added, "Besides, Bushehr Nuclear Reactor is still not activated, and our neighbors should have no fears regarding environmental radioactive pollution through that plant even in the long run."
The Iranian environmental protection official further explained, "Radioactive pollutant agents fluctuate in the sea and it cannot be so easily determined from which region, or which country they have been originated."
He noted, "There are various types of marine species living in northern regions of the Persian Gulf waters in Iranian territories that migrate between there and Kuwait's coastal regions.
Nabavi added, "Those species lay their eggs in one region in a year and in another the following year, and it is therefore impossible to decide their exact natural habitat."
He added, "Neither any country, nor any source can accuse a country of projecting radioactive pollutants without presenting authentic proof and reliable documents about such claims, and those to do so actually commit irresponsible, non-technical moves." Nabavi referred to the recent visit of a delegation of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea branch of the Regional Association to Protect Marine Environment (RAPMI) from Iran's coastal waters.
He added, "Among the regions the RAPMI delegation observed carefully there was the Bushehr coastal waters, near Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, and they verified there was absolutely no radioactive pollution in Persian Gulf waters coming from a source in Iran."
Head of the Faculty of Marine Biology of Iran's Science and Technology University, too, told IRNA on Friday that there is absolutely no radioactive pollution projecting in Persian Gulf waters through Iran's soil.
Seyyed Mohammad-Reza Fatemi added, "Bushehr Nuclear Plant is the only location in which radioactive material would be used in the future, and since the nuclear fuel has still not been delivered to that plant, the possibility of entry of radioactive material through any river in Iran to that gulf is zero."
He said that one possibility is that the munitions used in the Iraq-Kuwait war have now emerged as a radioactive pollutant source in the Persian Gulf.
Fatemi explained, "During that war in order to penetrate farther in ground fields the American forces used uranium munitions that remained in southern Iraq's soil."
He added, "Recent torrential rains have now washed those polluted oils and sent the pollution through the rivers to Persian Gulf waters."
The marine environment technician added, "Therefore, the only land source through which such radioactive pollutants could have entered the Persian Gulf is the Iraq-Kuwait border regions' river that are less than ten meters deep, whose polluted waters can kill the region's marine species."
He said, "Our studies have led to the conclusion that the radioactive pollutants entering the Persian Gulf through Khour Abdollah, Tigris, and Euphrates rivers can poison the shrimps, and two types of widely caught fish in this region, and to harm the region's ecosystem at sea base."
Fatemi emphasized, "Other than those sources, there is no land source in Iran, nor anywhere else in the region to project radioactive radiations and pollution into the Persian Gulf waters.
© IRNA 2006
