Rafsanjani says IAEA report biased

IRAN: Iranian former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani lashed out at the UN nuclear watchdog on Saturday for presenting what he said was a biased report against Tehran.

“It is clearly evident that a part of this report has been presented following recommendation and under the influence of foreign elements,” Rafsanjani said, referring to Thursday’s release of a report by the UN body expressing “concerns” that Tehran could be developing a nuclear warhead.

“It can not be said that this is the work of an independent international centre,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Rafsanjani as saying about the International Atomic Energy Agency.

On Thursday, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano, in a blunt first report to the watchdog’s board of governors, expressed concern Iran might be seeking to develop a nuclear warhead.

“The information available to the agency... raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile,” Amano wrote.

Iranian officials have dismissed the report and the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei again denied on Friday that Tehran was seeking atomic weapons.

Iran maintains its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purpose, but world powers suspect the Islamic republic is covertly aiming to develop a weapons capability.

Rafsanjani, who has been severely criticised by hardliners for backing groups inside Iran opposed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the report was a “psychological war by the United States and others” against the Islamic republic.

“The volume of threats and biased political suggestions which seek to generate a consensus against Iran have been unprecedented. But they will not prevail,” he said.

Washington and other world powers are drumming up support for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran after it failed to heed repeated Security Council ultimatums to suspend uranium enrichment and failed to agree to a UN-drafted deal for the supply of nuclear fuel.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast too criticised the IAEA report.

“We expect the IAEA to preserve its identity and reputation and not allow the political will of some countries to be imposed on the world community,” Mehmanparast said, according to IRNA.

Denouncing the report as a Western attempt at politically pressurising Iran, Mehmanparast also questioned the position of nations that are not signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and have acquired nuclear weapons without similar levels of criticism.

“These countries have nuclear weapons, but nobody questions them,” he said in a clear allusion to Israel, which has the Midde East’s sole if undeclared nuclear aresenal.

Iran maintains that as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty it has a right to pursue the development of nuclear technology for civil purposes and that its activities are all under the oversight of the UN watchdog.

Western governments suspect that Iran’s nuclear programme is cover for a drive for a bomb and are seeking to rein in its moves started earlier this month to enrich uranium to 20 percent level, seen as a milestone in that process.

Iran strongly denies it has any such ambition.

TEHRAN, Sunday, AFP