Iran says IAEA resolution issued under political pressure
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Vienna, Feb 6, IRNA
Iran-IAEA-Nuclear issue
Iran on Sunday said the resolution passed Saturday by the the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reporting Iran to the UN Security Council was the result of political pressure imposed by the United States and ignored all positive cooperation of Iran with the agency.
Talking to IRNA, Iran's representative to the IAEA, Ali-Akbar Soltaniyeh, expressed dissatisfaction with the resolution.
"The resolution was passed under pressure from the West which ignored the fact that Iran chose to be a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) after the victory of the Islamic Revolution (in 1979) because Iranian policy does not see the need for nuclear weapons," he said.
The IAEA Board of Governors on Saturday approved a resolution tabled by the European Union troika (Germany, France and Britain) mandating the nuclear watchdog to report Iran to the Security Council.
The resolution was passed with 27 votes in favor, three against and five members abstaining.
Cuba, Venezuela and Syria voted against the resolution while Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa abstained.
"Iran is the only country that implemented the Additional Protocol to the NPT even without the approval of parliament (Majlis)," Soltaniyeh said.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran made the decision of suspending uranium enrichment in order to prove that uranium which it had been enriching was partly contaminated.
"Although the IAEA had confirmed the pollution at their foreign source, the Europeans did not keep their promises and continued to entertain their suspicions on Iran's nuclear activities."
He added that the governing board of the IAEA passed the anti-Iran resolution last September 24 despite the fact that Iran's nuclear activities in its uranium conversion facility (UCF) in Isfahan had nothing to do with enrichment.
"(Nuclear) research is legal under all rules and regulation of the IAEA or NPT or even under the Additional Protocol but the the issue has been politicized since Iran launched nuclear research." The Iranian representative regretted the fact that the environment had already been prepared for "Iran's nuclear case to be reported to the UN Security Council" obviously because of US pressure.
"The representative of the Zionist regime even opposed the move of certain countries, which had concerns over the regime's burgeoning nuclear arsenal, to have a clause calling for a `nuclear-free Middle East" incorporated into the resolution, he pointed out.
"Some countries believed the IAEA was the proper venue for resolving Iran's nuclear case while others believed negotiation still had the chance of removing ambiguities," Soltaniyeh said.
"The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to protest over the discrimination and double standards applied by certain countries and insists that the resolution has no legal basis," he added.
He recalled that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in his address to the UN General Assembly last year, invited countries to participate in Iran's nuclear programs. This, he said, clearly showed Iran's intentions in its nuclear programs.
Meanwhile, he went on to say, "an official statement issued by the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which has over 100 states in the IAEA's membership, before the resolution was passed and their disgust thereafter proves that there was no international concensus and that the resolution reflected the views of only a limited number of sitting members of the IAEA's governing board."
"The resolution passed on Saturday by the IAEA's Board of Governors was a historical mistake that will eventually be judged by the international community," Soltaniyeh concluded.
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