HARDENING ITS STAND, TEHRAN WARNS IAEA OF REVISING COOPERATION
VIENNA 11 Sept. (IPS) As five leading industrialised nations were pushing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to approve a resolution Wednesday that would give Tehran until October 31 to prove it has no covert nuclear weapons program, representative of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in the governing council of the Agency, Hoseyn Hanif said the non-aligned states are convinced that Iran has done nothing wrong as for the nuclear activities.
The strongly worded draft worked by the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Japan circulated at a closed-door meeting of the Agency's 35-nation Board of Governors call on Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA’s experts and also "suspend all further uranium enrichment activities".
The IAEA said in an August 26 report that inspectors found traces of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium at an enrichment facility that Iran has built secretly at Natanz, in central Iran, arousing suspicions that Iran might have been secretly purifying uranium for use in nuclear weapons.
Tehran’s answer was the traces of enriched uranium detected at Natanz were found on machinery that was already contaminated before Iran purchased it abroad in the 1980s.
But the explanation did not convince the IAEA.
"Iran has done no illegal action as for uranium of which samples have been taken, Dato Hanif, the Malaysian Ambassador to the IAEA told reporters in Vienna, quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
Referring to the proposed resolution by the four western nations and Japan, Hanif said it would be an "inveighed measure" for the IAEA to issue a severe resolution against Iran because it would bring to an end the positive and constructive cooperation between Tehran and the IAEA.
According to Hanif, the non-aligned countries are trying to remove the time limit in the resolution so as the IAEA Chief Mohammad El-Baradei could deal with the Iran case in a calm atmosphere.
"We want to give ElBaradei a free hand to decide," he said. "If you have a specific deadline, then there is also a sense that you're telling (ElBaradei) that you must complete your job by that time."
As he was talking to journalists in Vienna, in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Kamal Kharazi denounced the "arrogance" and "extremist posture" of certain countries over Iran's nuclear program and warned that Tehran might reconsider its cooperation with the UN's nuclear watchdog.
"The posture of certain countries (on the board of governors of the IAEA) is irresponsible and arrogant", Kharazi said in a statement published by IRNA.
"Unfortunately, some are trying openly and wilfully to destroy the process of cooperation between Iran and the agency and seeking to cut the agency out of the process.
"If the extremists take control of the matter and do not recognize our legitimate rights to have peaceful nuclear activities, we will then be obliged to review the situation and the current level of cooperation with the agency", he added.
A Western diplomat told Reuters that this kind of comment from Tehran was "blackmail.
For its part, the hard line "Keyhan" newspaper which reflects the views of Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the leader of the Islamic Republic said Thursday that even if the government present the Majles, or Parliament, a bill for Iran to sign the additional protocols to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), something that requires months of thoughtful studies, it is doubtful that the lawmakers would approve it.
The United States accused Iran Tuesday of being in breach of safeguards under the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty but supported a proposed "last chance" for Tehran to clear up questions about its atomic program.
It did not say what would happen if Iran did not cooperate, but a Western diplomat said what was important was "that a signal is sent, that a clear bright line is laid down that Iran must comply with IAEA requests in a quick, complete and transparent manner."
"In a speech to the Board of Governors, the Canadian representative asked that the issue of the Islamic Republic's nuclear activities be immediately sent to the United Nations Security Council.
Canada’s relations with the Islamic Republic suffered a setback after Iranian interrogators killed Ms Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian photojournalist of Iranian origin and refused to transfer her body to Montreal, where she lived with her 26 years-old son, Stephan Hashemi. ENDS IAEA IRAN 11903