Iran rules out complete nuclear dismantling
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-11-24 14:12

Iran will never be prepared to dismantle its nuclear program entirely but remains committed to the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), its chief delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Wednesday.

The United States, which branded Iran as part of an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and pre-war Iraq, accuses Iran of using its nuclear power program as a front to build a bomb. Tehran rejects the claim.

"Definitely, Iran will never be prepared for dismantling. This is out of the question and out of negotiation," Hossein Mousavian told a news conference in Beijing.

Hossein Mousavian, Iran's chief delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, speaks to the media at the Iranian embassy in Beijing, November 24, 2004. Mousavian said Iran would never be prepared to dismantle its nuclear programs, but was committed to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. [Reuters]

"Americans also have no right to raise something like this," he said, adding that Iran had never used its nuclear power program for weapons production.

On Monday, Iran said it had kept a promise it made to the European Union last week by freezing its entire uranium enrichment program and the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, gave a cautious confirmation.

Iran made a similar promise in October 2003 but never fully suspended its enrichment program.

France, Britain and Germany, which spearheaded an EU offer of incentives if Iran suspended its uranium enrichment program, circulated a draft resolution that diplomats at the United Nations said was unacceptable to both Washington and Tehran.

Washington sees it as too weak and wants to include an "automatic trigger" which makes it clear that resuming any activities related to enrichment -- a process of purifying uranium to fuel power plants or make weapons -- would spark a referral to the U.N. Security Council and possibly sanctions.

The draft is to be submitted to the board of governors of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, in Vienna on Thursday, where Mousavian was headed from Beijing.

If the United States pushed for the issue to be addressed in the U.N. Security Council, Washington would find itself alone, Mousavian said.

"I think Americans, they see not much room to oppose the present process of cooperation between Iran and the EU," he said at the end of a visit to the Chinese capital.

"And even if this time they raise the urgency of referral of the case to the United Nations Security Council I believe again they would be isolated," he said.

Iran's suspension of activities that could be used to make a nuclear weapon was a gesture of goodwill, Mousavian said, and Iran was serious about its commitment to use its nuclear programs for peaceful purposes.

"Iran would be prepared for full cooperation, comprehensive cooperation in the framework of NPT safeguards and protocols, active, proactive cooperation with IAEA, transparency as much as protocol and safeguards and the NPT requests," he said.

Asked if a formula such as the six-party talks to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis could be applied to Iran, Mousavian said the two cases were very different.

"I believe we have a very different situation. North Korea possesses nuclear bombs. Everybody knows that Iran not only does not possess any nuclear bombs, Iranian nuclear activities have never had diversion also," he said.

North Korea had withdrawn from the NPT, while Iran was committed to it, he said.

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