Tehran, Iran ? In less than two months, Iran is hoping to celebrate the birth of a cloned sheep, the first such cloning attempt in the Middle East and part of Iran’s ambitions – along with its nuclear and space programs – to become a regional high-tech powerhouse.

The cloning program has won backing from the country’s Muslim Shiite religious leaders, who have issued religious decrees authorizing animal cloning but banning human reproductive cloning. A majority of Iran’s nearly 70 million people are Shiites.

In contrast, Sunni Muslim religious leaders – including senior clerics in Saudi Arabia – have banned cloning altogether, even in animals.

The cloning effort is a result of Iran’s work in recent years in stem cell research. Officials say researchers tried to impregnate five sheep with cloned embryos and one of the sheep is expected to deliver on Feb. 14.

“Of five surrogate mothers, three of the sheep are pregnant. One of them has two babies in its womb, an unprecedented occurrence in the world’s brief cloning history,” said Saeed Kazemi Ashtiani, head of Iran’s Royan (Embryo) Institute.

Doctors perform an ultrasound on a sheep pregnant with twins. Three surrogate sheep mothers are pregnant with implanted embryos, and one is expected to give birth in mid-February.

The latest ultrasonic evaluation performed by veterinarians last week showed the twins in good shape.

“Fortunately, everything is pointing in the right direction. We appear to be in a perfect shape.”

Park Se-pill, the director of the Seoul, South Korea-based Maria Infertility Medical Institute at Maria Hospital, said the expected birth of Iran’s first cloned sheep “shows that Iran has the technology to create cloned sheep like Dolly,” the world’s first cloned sheep, born in 1997.

Scientists at Royan Institute also tried to clone a cow, but it led to an abortion in the early weeks of pregnancy.

Cloning sheep and cows would help the scientists with research aimed at producing medicine in the animals’ milk. Cloned animals also could be developed to produce human antibodies against infectious diseases.

“Our final aim of animal cloning is to create ground for new research in the country and prepare Iran scientifically to carry out cloning treatment – provided global agreements are reached,” Ashtiani said.

Under a 20-year development plan, Iran aims to become a base for high technology and a scientific powerhouse in western Asia and a regional dominant power by 2025.

Cloning has provoked ethical concerns, especially over the possibility that it might be used to clone humans. In 2004, South Korean scientists announced that they had cloned 30 human embryos, grown them in the laboratory until they were a hollow ball of cells, and produced a line of stem cells from them. Little more is known about it.

Ashtiani said Iranian researchers would never try to clone a human being because it would not be allowed in the country.