TEHRAN, Aug 25: Iran is ready for unconditional talks over its nuclear programme but rejects the West’s “language of force” over the issue, one of the Islamic republic’s religious leaders said on Friday.
Iran also said it would soon announce new nuclear successes in its quest for nuclear power that the West fears is aimed at acquiring atomic weapons.
“Iran is favourable towards negotiations that are just, logical and without preconditions, but refuses the language of force,” Ahmad Khatami said in a Friday sermon broadcast on state radio.
“Using the language of force with Iran is a foolish and clumsy attitude,” said Mr Khatami, who is a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, which supervises the work of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The United States and other world powers have reacted coolly to Iran’s response to a package of incentives offered by the five permanent Security Council members and Germany in return for a moratorium on sensitive uranium activities.
“During the war in Lebanon, the Security Council showed that it acted as the United States’ valet ... We advise Russia and China not to fall into the Americans’ trap,” Mr Khatami said.
Government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham also announced that Iran would soon unveil some fresh successes in its nuclear programme.
“In the nuclear domain, we have made progress and obtained new scientific successes which will be announced soon,” Mr Elham said, also during Friday prayers, without elaborating. Iran said on Wednesday it would soon announce an atomic breakthrough.
“This great scientific achievement is the fruit of a long-term research project ... It will be formally announced by a top official,” the semi-official Mehr agency had quoted an informed source as saying.
“The announcement will highlight Iran’s mastery of different areas in nuclear science and will reinforce Iran’s position as a nuclear country,” the report said.
Amid a fanfare of publicity, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced in April that Iran had successfully enriched uranium to 3.5 per cent and mastered the nuclear fuel cycle.
