Monday, June 2, 2003
Iran not to sign new NPT protocol on inspections
Agence France-Presse Iran, June 2
Iran on Monday rejected mounting international calls for it to sign an additional protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that would allow tougher inspections of its suspect nuclear programme.
The refusal came after Russia, which is helping the Islamic republic build its first atomic power plant in Bushehr in southern Iran, joined calls for Tehran to grant International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors full access to suspect facilities.
"If the Russians are worried, we are ready to discuss this with them," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
"The question of sanctions has to be resolved first. We will not sign any other international accord while the West does not respect its obligations outlined by the NPT, and does not help us with (peaceful) nuclear technology as the NPT obliges them to," he added.
Iran, a signatory of the NPT, is currently only subject to IAEA inspections of declared sites. But the country has come under mounting pressure to open up a string of suspect sites amid allegations from Washington that Iran's clerical regime is actively seeking to acquire the bomb.
Russia is also coming under almost daily pressure from the United States to halt its multi-billion dollar nuclear cooperation with Iran, a country lumped into an "axis of evil" by US President George W. Bush.
But Asefi asserted that Moscow "has commitments with us that it has to respect". As for US concerns, Asefi brushed them off as "pretexts".
"The United States is not really worried about what they call weapons of mass destruction or our nuclear programme. These are just pretexts: if they are worried, all they have to do is come here and help us build our nuclear power stations," he said.
And Asefi also dismissed the argument that Iran has no need for nuclear power, given its massive oil and gas reserves.
"It was the United States that proposed to the former regime (of the Shah) to build nuclear power plants," he asserted.
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