June 28, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 27,1424

LONDON, June 27: British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will visit Iran next week to press its leaders to cooperate urgently with United Nations’ demands on weapons inspections to dispel doubts over its nuclear ambitions.

Straw — whose fourth visit to Iran in two years comes as international pressure grows on Tehran to prove its peaceful intentions — is not expected to give a deadline for signing up to an additional protocol on weapons inspections.

But he will tell Iran there is a “sense of urgency” in the international community to see it address questions about its weapons, British officials said on Friday.

Washington has accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons. But Iran insists its nuclear sites are purely for domestic energy purposes.

Straw will also be looking for signs that Iran is addressing concerns over human rights and the support of terror groups.

London has adopted a much softer approach to Tehran than Washington, which has branded Iran as part of an international “axis of evil”, and has backed recent pro-democracy student protests, calling them the start of a free Iran.

Iran said on Friday it had arrested more than 4,000 people during the protests against Islamic clerical rule.

While Britain wholeheartedly sided with the United States over the Iraq war, splitting the European Union down the middle, it is sticking close to its EU partners and the UN on Iran.

The UN’s atomic energy protocol, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), wants Iran to sign an additional protocol to allow more intrusive inspections. Straw will use his trip to urge Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazzi to sign the protocol.

The EU recently endorsed the IAEA’s demands on Iran and the bloc will meet again to discuss Iran in September.

“This visit takes place in the context of a great deal of international concern on Iran including proliferation, human rights, terrorism and the Middle East Peace Process,” a Foreign Office spokesman said on Friday. “The foreign secretary will be in particular taking that message of concern to Iran.”

Britain, which along with the United States is trying to bring democracy and order to a chaotic Iraq, is aware that Iranian agents are present in Iraq.

Britain says so far there has been no indication that Iranians are seeking to undermine efforts to rebuild Iraq.

“This is something we have to watch for but so far there hasn’t been organised Iranian collective undermining of the transition process here,” John Sawers, Britain’s special representative for Iraq, told reporters in London on Friday via video conference from Baghdad.—Reuters