12 December 2009: DPA
Tehran - Iran said Saturday that any further United Nations sanctions over
its controversial nuclear programmes were 'unjust and political,' ISNA news
agency reported.
The European Union and the US announced on Friday that they were prepared to
push for more UN sanctions against Iran should the Islamic Republic refuse to
cooperate with foreign demands on its nuclear projects.
'The countries (planning the sanctions) know very well that their plan is
totally unjust and political,' foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast
told ISNA.
'World public opinion should know that this plan is outside any
internationally acknowledged legal framework and especially outside the
framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),' the spokesman said.
The government said Iran has the right to pursue peaceful nuclear
development, including uranium enrichment, as signatory of the Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and member of the IAEA.
Tehran also rejects Western charges that it is working on a secret nuclear
programme to make an atomic bomb.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, currently in Bahrain at a
security conference, criticized the world powers' plans of renewed sanction
against Iran and said such measures would have the reverse effect.
'The use of force, threats and sanctions for confronting Iran's peaceful
nuclear projects and making instrumental and political use of the IAEA would not
only have reverse effects but also undermine the NPT,' Mottaki was quoted by
Mehr news agency as saying.
The Iranian foreign minister called on the world powers 'to stop
discrimination', instead of focusing on Iran, but to also look at Israel.
The nuclear row has reached another deadlock after Iran admitted to the
construction of a new enrichment site south of Tehran, and rejected a plan
brokered by the IAEA for Iran's low enriched uranium (LEU) being exported to
Russia and France for further enrichment and eventually fuel for the Tehran
medical reactor.
'The deal is still on, just our proposal was the deal should be made inside
Iran: bring the fuel and get the LEU instead,' Mehmanparast said, reiterating
that Iran needed guarantees that the deal would be correctly implemented.
'The deal can fully be under IAEA supervision and even the fuel can even be
delivered inside Iran first to the IAEA (and then to us),' the spokesman added.
Both the IAEA and the world powers have so far rejected the Iranian proposal
and gave Iran time until the end of the year to accept the initial IAEA plan or
face renewed sanctions.
Following another IAEA resolution last month against the Islamic state, Iran
warned it would reduce cooperation with the UN nuclear guardian to a minimum and
would even increase the enrichment level of its uranium from around 5 per cent
now to 20 per cent by itself.
Tehran however later revised its stance and, as repeated Saturday by Mottaki
in Bahrain, vowed to continue cooperation.
Tehran also proclaimed that for covering its electricity needs, the country
needed between 15 to 20 new uranium enrichment sites of which ten have already
been ordered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be built.
