Tehran - A senior Iranian cleric on Friday termed the
requests by the United Nations nuclear watchdog from Iran as
irrelevant and further criticized its head Mohamed ElBaradei for
'ambiguous remarks.'
'The IAEA should act impartially and within its defined framework
and not follow accusations which have no documented proof,' former
president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani said at the Friday prayer ceremony
in Tehran.
The cleric was referring to the latest report on Iran by
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General ElBaradei
who said that 'regrettably, as a result of the lack of cooperation by
Iran in connection with the alleged studies and other associated key
remaining issues of serious concern, the Agency has not been able to
make substantive progress on these issues.'
Rafsanjani, in rebutting the IAEA, commented 'Mr. ElBaradei is
unfortunately making ambiguous remarks? on the one hand he says there
are no deviations in the Iranian nuclear programme, on the other hand
he blames us for not replying to baseless charges not directly coming
from the IAEA.'
The IAEA has received documents from a number of member states
indicating that past Iranian projects on missiles, high explosives
and uranium conversion could have been related to nuclear weapons
work.
'The United States has made several accusations but presented no
documents, not even to the IAEA, for proving their charges. Besides
that the IAEA is not in charge of following allegations made by other
member states,' Rafsanjani said, justifying Iran's rejection of the
IAEA request to inspect nuclear sites outside the agency's
jurisdiction.
Tehran says it has no problems with IAEA inspections but they
should be within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), meaning it must be after coordination with Tehran.
As Iran stopped implementation of the IAEA Additional Protocol -
which allows snap inspections - some three years ago, agency
inspections could no longer be effected without prior notice.
'We are for peace and stability in the region and not after
confrontation but we will neither allow the IAEA nor the UN Security
Council to violate our (nuclear) rights,' Rafsanjani said.
Iran says that numerous inspections by the IAEA have proved Iran's
claim that its nuclear projects were solely for peaceful and civil
purposes and Tehran, as NPT signatory, should therefore be allowed to
follow a civil nuclear programme, including uranium enrichment.
Tehran is further demanding the return of its nuclear dossier from
the UN Security Council to the IAEA in Vienna and be dealt with as a
normal case.
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