All IAEA Nuclear Concerns Resolved, Iran Says

Iran has answered all International Atomic Energy Agency questions regarding its nuclear activities, the nation’s foreign minister said yesterday following an announcement by agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei that Tehran would now address evidence of possible nuclear weapon design research, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, April 23).

The United States and other Western powers provided some of the evidence to back their suspicion that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists the sole aim of its nuclear program is to generate power.  Iran last year began disclosing limited details on its past activities to a U.N. nuclear watchdog probe of its nuclear motives.

“In the past year there has been a friendly cooperation between Iran and the IAEA,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters.  “We have responded to all questions and ambiguities that the agency had.

“About the alleged [nuclear weapon] studies — within that period of cooperation we responded to the issues that they had pointed out and our responses were completely clear, legal and logical,” Mottaki said.

“From now,” he said, “Iran’s cooperation with the agency is the dealing of [an] ordinary member state with the agency under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the IAEA’s regulations.

“So we will have such trips and exchanges of views in the future,” Mottaki said, referring to talks held earlier this week between Iranian nuclear officials and IAEA safeguards chief Olli Heinonen (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, April 23).

A high-level Iranian nuclear official spoke optimistically on Tuesday about Heinonen’s two-day visit to Tehran, Reuters reported.

“The talks with Heinonen were positive,” the official said.  Previously, Iran had only acknowledged that the aim of the talks was to advance cooperation between Tehran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed aggravation Tuesday about the slow progress in mediating the stalemate over Iran’s disputed nuclear work.

“We would welcome it a lot if we could make progress here,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin.  “Unfortunately, we’re not really moving ahead on this.”

Appearing with Merkel, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani pressed the sides to resolve the nuclear impasse without the use of penalties.

“Sanctions are counterproductive,” he said.  “To us in the region, it is very important that the problem is solved peacefully and not with violence” (Parisa Hafezi, Reuters, April 22).

Meanwhile, India on Tuesday brushed off a U.S. call to urge Iran to suspend its controversial nuclear work, the Associated Press reported.  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected in New Delhi next week.

“India and Iran are ancient civilizations whose relations span centuries,” the Indian Foreign Ministry said in response to a U.S. State Department spokesman’s remarks.  “Neither country needs any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations” (Matthew Rosenberg, Associated Press/Google News, April 23).

Elsewhere, British Foreign Office minister Mark Malloch Brown yesterday criticized U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton (N.Y.), a Democratic contender for president, for threatening to “obliterate” Iran should that nation  launch a nuclear strike on Israel, AFP reported.

“While it is reasonable to warn Iran of the consequence of it continuing to develop nuclear weapons and what those real consequences bring to its security, it is not probably prudent … in today’s world to threaten to obliterate any other country and in many cases civilians resident in such a country,” said the former U.N. deputy secretary general (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, April 23).

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