Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 30 / Trend D.Khatinoglu/
Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said that the precondition for returning Iran to nuclear negotiations with the '5+1' group centres on the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over its approach and behaviour toward Iran, IRIB TV reported.
Condemning the IAEA's last report about Iran's nuclear programme, Mr Larijani said the West has not made the same request. They call on Iran to pursue negotiations over its nuclear programme, but the next day they use the UN Security Council and IAEA governors' board to put pressure on Iran.
The West should review its behaviour toward Iran and the IAEA should provide the necessary confidence for keeping further negotiations on-going with Iran.
The IAEA Director General, Yukiya Amano, submitted his latest report on Iran's nuclear programme to the IAEA Board of Governors on November 8.
In it Mr Amano claimed that Iran may have engaged in activities related to developing nuclear weapons prior to 2003, adding that such efforts 'may still be on-going'.. However, he failed to offer any evidence whatsoever for such claims, which have repeatedly been publicised in the past by Israeli, American and some European government officials and major state-sponsored media outlets in the West.
Iran has dismissed Mr Amano's report as 'unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States'.
Iran and the '5+1' group (France, Great Britain, Russia, China, the U.S plus Germany) have negotiated Iran's disputed nuclear programme several times without reaching any conclusion.
The U.S. and other Western countries accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons under cover of a peaceful nuclear energy programme. Tehran denies the accusations, saying that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it has the right to acquire and develop atomic technology for peaceful purposes.
Iran's refusal to abandon its nuclear activities has resulted in it adopting four rounds of resolutions by the UN Security Council, as well as additional unilateral sanctions approved by the U.S. Congress and the foreign ministers of all EU countries which were primarily directed against the banking, financial and energy sectors of Iran.