Iranian President Warns U.N. Against Intervention

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday demanded that the U.N. Security Council refrain from intervening in Iran’s nuclear program as the International Atomic Energy Agency seeks to clarify the country’s nuclear ambitions, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 12).

“The work should be continued with [the] agency, others should not intervene,” Ahmadinejad said.  “We do not have any problem with the agency.”

“We are ready to do all our commitments in the framework of the agency,” he said.

Chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani warned yesterday that a third round of Security Council sanctions against Iran would endanger the country’s cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

“Cooperation will be in danger.  The cooperation which is currently taking place with a positive outlook will be halted,” Larijani said.  “One side should not be smiling and the other side answer with a frown” (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press I/Live-PR.com, Sept. 12).

Ahmadinejad in an interview yesterday dismissed suspicions that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, Agence France-Presse reported.

“We don’t want a bomb.  We are against bombs, actually,” he told the United Kingdom’s Channel 4. 

“From a political point of view, it’s not useful … Why do we want a bomb? … What’s the use of it?  We don’t need it.”

His assertion came amid continued international controversy over Iran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which could yield a nuclear bomb ingredient (see GSN, Sept. 12; Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Sept. 12).

Meanwhile, Iran’s IAEA envoy said yesterday that Western powers were “poisoning the environment” at a meeting of the agency’s 35-nation governing board by drawing attention away from Iran’s recent cooperation with an investigation of its past nuclear activities, AP reported (Associated Press II/China Daily, Sept. 12).

The U.S. State Department yesterday announced Sept. 21 as the date of the Washington meeting for the five permanent member nations of the Security Council and Germany to review a draft sanctions resolution against Iran, AFP reported.

The meeting is expected to involve policy coordinators from the nations’ foreign ministries, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns “is going to be hosting next week here in Washington a political directors’ meeting of the P5+1 and I expect the meeting will be centered largely on discussion of what sanctions would be in the next resolution,” McCormack said.

“We are confident that we are going to be able to move forward, get a new Security Council resolution that includes new sanctions,” he said (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, Sept. 12).

Elsewhere, Iran’s foreign minister met in Moscow yesterday with the head of Russia’s nuclear agency, but a Russian official said they did not discuss the disputed timeline for Russia to finish constructing the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran, Reuters reported (see GSN, Sept. 7).

“It was decided to leave this off the agenda because there is a separate working group of experts who are handling this issue,” the official said (Reuters/Moscow Times, Sept. 13).

Meanwhile, Iranian Atomic Energy Organization head Gholamreza Aghazadeh said Tuesday that the Bushehr nuclear plant is 95 percent complete, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported yesterday.

Aghazadeh said that Iranian officials expect to announce in one month when Russia plans to deliver fuel for the plant and when the facility will begin operation.

Disputes between Iran and Russia’s state-run contractor over the project are not “contractual,” he said, but rather are owed to the project’s long-term nature.

“The contractor is saying it cannot continue to work according to the contract due to financial losses,” he said (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sept. 12).

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