Iran has right to civilian nuclear programme: FM
Foreign Desk Report

BAKU—Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Motaki said Iran has the legitimate right to run a civilian nuclear program. “Iran’s right to do so is documented in international agreements and no country can take it away,” Motaki told reporters following his talks with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov in Baku Monday.
Teheran advocates the elimination of nuclear weapons globally, Motaki said. “We are primarily against the production and storing of nuclear weapons, and for the elimination of nuclear weapons all over the world. Iran’s military doctrine has no provisions dealing with nuclear weapons,” the Iranian foreign minister said. He reiterated his country’s right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, despite of a warning from EU that Iran could very well face sanctions from the UN’s Security Council over its nuclear programme. “We consider enrichment as part of our legitimate rights,” Motaki said. “What remains is how to remove the concerns that Iran does not divert towards nuclear weapons.”
He maintained that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could inspect “wherever they wish, any time they want” to make certain that Tehran’s use of uranium enrichment is not used to make nuclear weapons. “Iran has been always pushing for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Basically this means that it is forbidden based on our ideology, based on our Islamic thinking it is forbidden to produce and use nuclear weapons as well as other weapons of mass destruction,” he said. Iran has continuously insisted that the nuclear programme is purely for civilian energy purposes. “Iran does not want to play a destabilizing role in the region,” he said of speculation it wants to acquire nuclear weapons in the Middle East. The heavy-water reactor can be used to make nuclear weapons material while the light-water reactor is deemed less of a nuclear proliferation risk. “This is a psychological war against Iran,” he said. “Iran is able to defend itself.” He reiterated that the whole process of its uranium enrichment program must be performed in its own territory and the nuclear talks with the European Union (EU) must be based on this condition. “Apparently, we will just consider plans which secure Iran’s right to produce nuclear fuel for peaceful purpose within its territory,” he said.
He stressed that nuclear fuel cycle construction in Iran would be the most important topic for the future negotiations between Iran and the EU. The foreign minister said that so far Tehran had received neither new proposals form Russia nor request of resuming talks from the EU, terming the reported Russian proposal over enrichment abroad as fabricated by media. He called on the EU to be logical to allow the two sides to reopen the nuclear negotiations within the frameworks of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), pointing out that the talks “should not impose any regulations on Iran and should not aim at wasting time”.
As to the recent meeting of IAEA board of governors, he said that the board’s decision to postpone the referral of Iran’s case to the UN Security Council was “a wise choice”. The IAEA made the decision of postponement on Thursday in order to offer more time for Tehran and the EU to discuss an alleged Russian proposal, which permits Iran to conduct uranium conversion activities on condition that the enrichment stage be moved to Russia, a measure keeping Tehran from obtaining nuclear technology crucial to making atom bombs.