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TEHRAN, Nov 19: Iran will refuse any further demands from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to halt its uranium enrichment activities, the country’s top national security official said on Wednesday.
“We have said clearly that any phrase in a resolution aimed at transforming the voluntary pledge by Iran to suspend uranium enrichment into a legal obligation will be unacceptable to us,” the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rowhani, was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.
The comment came the day before the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog is due to meet to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme, amid US allegations that Iran’s bid to generate atomic energy is merely a cover for nuclear weapons development.
Iran last month agreed to meet a raft of IAEA demands including the suspension of uranium enrichment, but insists its pledge to suspend its work on the sensitive nuclear fuel cycle is voluntary and temporary and could be reversed at any time.
ACCORD PUT OFF: Meanwhile, Russia and Iran have again put off the signing of an agreement that would clear the way for Moscow to complete construction of Iran’s first nuclear power reactor, a top minister said on Wednesday.
Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said that the Iranian side had been “too busy” with preparing documents for the IAEA for the Bushehr power reactor.
Russia has said it would not deliver any fuel for the Bushehr reactor until Tehran signs the agreement, under which it would agree to return all of the reactor’s spent fuel back to Russia.
POLITICAL AID TO IRAQ: Iran has offered Iraq a package of political and security assistance, after a landmark visit here by top members of the Iraqi Governing Council that also yielded a trade pact set to boost Iranian economic clout in its US-occupied neighbour.
Iranian state media said Iran’s Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mussavi-Lari had offered top Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, the current chairman of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, assistance in matters ranging from border security to drafting a new constitution.
“Now the black dictatorship of Saddam Hussein is over... the two nations can build mutual, regional and international trust,” Mussavi-Lari told Jalal Talabani, who is heading a top delegation on a two-day visit to Tehran.
“Iran can and is ready to share with you our experience in the fields of border security, the training and structuring of a police force, economic ties between border provinces, management of pilgrims, running city halls, issuing birth certificates and organizing a census,” he said.
“Since we have organized 23 elections we are ready to share our experiences in the framework of drafting a constitution, setting up an assembly and setting up polling stations,” he added.
The reports did not say if Mr Talabani, who also heads the powerful Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and has at times enjoyed close ties with Iran but is now seen as being close to the United States, gave any detailed response to the each of the offers.
But the BBC said on its website Mr Talabani had told it Iran had agreed to help fight “terrorism” in Iraq, and had accepted that the current wave of attacks against US-led forces was not resistance to occupation but “the work of indiscriminate killers.”
Iraq’s interim Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said Iran had agreed to help tighten control along the long border between the two countries and try to prevent infiltration, according to the BBC.—AFP
