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Iranian Envoy: U.S., Mossad Influencing IAEA reports

Iran Materials 6 June 2013 16:34 (UTC +04:00)
The Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Asghar Soltanieh said on Wednesday that the Iranian nation is determined to take advantage of peaceful nuclear energy despite political pressures and sanctions.
Iranian Envoy: U.S., Mossad Influencing IAEA reports

The Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Asghar Soltanieh said on Wednesday that the Iranian nation is determined to take advantage of peaceful nuclear energy despite political pressures and sanctions, Press TV reported.

Soltanieh also accused the Israeli Mossad and American spy agencies of trying to influence IAEA reports on Iran's nuclear program.

The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies.

The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical researches instead.

"The Great nation of Iran will not permit anybody to deprive its present and future generation of inalienable right to peaceful nuclear energy, and therefore I can tell you that we will not yield to pressure, sanctions, threats of attack," Soltanieh said at a press conference in Vienna.

He stated that a recent report by the IAEA on the Islamic Republic's nuclear energy program is not acceptable as it is meant to create "political tension."

The IAEA reports, claimed the Iranian envoy, "are continuously giving the false information and allegations prepared by the CIA or the Mossad to the agency and keep the agency busy."

Soltanieh added that Iran has always been fully committed to protocols that ban the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

"Our nuclear policy is very clear. The nuclear weapon does not have any place in our nuclear doctrine," he said.

"We'll continue our nuclear activities, including enrichment, without any interruption under the full scope safeguards [agreement] of the IAEA," the Iranian diplomat added.

AFP reported that six world powers engaged in stalled talks with Iran over its nuclear program said on Wednesday that it was "essential and urgent" that Tehran co-operates with the UN atomic agency over allegations of bomb research.

The U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany also said they were "deeply concerned" by Iran's continued expansion of its activities despite UN Security Council resolutions calling for a suspension.

They said that after 10 failed meetings between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran over the past 18 months, it was "essential and urgent for Iran to engage with the agency on the substance of its concerns," according to AFP.

The countries - all permanent UN Security Council members except Germany - said at a meeting of the IAEA board of governors that this included Iran fulfilling "its undertaking to grant access to Parchin", a military base near Tehran.

The IAEA believes Iran conducted nuclear weapons research at the Parchin site and has been covering it up. Iran has rejected IAEA requests to visit the site and denies wanting or ever having worked on developing a nuclear weapon.

IAEA head Yukiya Amano said on Monday that after the 10 meetings, the latest on May 15, with Iran on these allegations, the two sides were "going around in circles".

The IAEA's latest quarterly report on Iran, circulated on May 22, showed Iran continuing to build up its capacity to enrich uranium, which in highly purified form could be used in a nuclear weapon.

The IAEA report also detailed advances by Iran building a new reactor at Arak which could provide Tehran with plutonium-an alternative to uranium for a bomb-if the reactor fuel is reprocessed.

Soltanieh said, however, that Tehran planned to use the reactor to produce mainly medical isotopes and did not intend to reprocess the fuel in order to extract plutonium.

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