Iran Confirms Stopping Additional Protocol of the NPT

Safa Haeri, Iran Press Service:

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator said that Tehran would leave the Additional Protocol but not the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

“If addressed with a language of menace and force, we shall continue with the NPT and talking, but will get out of the Additional Protocols”, said Mr. Ali Larijani, the Secretary of the Supreme Council on National Security, referring to the clause that allows international nuclear inspectors to visit any nuclear site, installation or project at short notice and without any restrictions. READ MORE

Iran accepted the Protocols on October 2003 and suspended on a voluntary basis all nuclear activities, but the government of former president Mohammad Khatami did not presented it to the Majles, or the Parliament for final approval.

The present parliament, controlled by the ruling conservatives has urged the new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad to consider getting out of the Additional Protocol and has said that it would not approve it if the Government submit it for acceptance.

Talking to basij (militia) students of the Sharif polytechnic University of Tehran on Sunday 9 October 2005, Mr. Larijani, who’s remarks were carried by the semi independent Iranian Students News Agency ISNA, also said that Tehran could accept parts of the last resolution adopted at majority by the 35 members of the Board of Directors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but reiterated Iran’s resolve to enrich uranium.

The European Union-sponsored, US-backed Resolution, adopted last month by a majority of 22 votes in favour 12 abstentions and one negative calls on the Islamic Republic to fully comply with NPT regulations, previous IAEA resolutions, stop all nuclear activities, including at he UCF and also respect engagements taken in Paris last November with the EU3, namely Britain, France and Germany or face the Security Council of the United Nations for possible economic sanctions.

“If the Westerners thinks by increasing the costs of UCF (Uranium Conversion Facility) at Esfahan they can force us to forget about enriching uranium, they are utterly wrong, for they know well that we are serious”, he said, referring to the resumption of the activities of the UCF last August, a decision that brought the so-called EU3 to suspend the two-years long negotiations with Iran about its controversial nuclear ambitions.

In previous statements, Mr. Larijani had warned that Iran could go beyond its resumed conversion of uranium into gas and start the next step in uranium enrichment, which produces material suitable for both nuclear reactor fuel in electricity generation and for atomic weapons.

Mr. Larijani, an unfortunate runner in the last Iranian presidential race and a former Revolutionary Guard’s officer reserved most of his conversations with the pro-government students on attacking the United States for what he described as “political fascism”.

“With its political fascism, the United States has created a judicial anarchy in which we see that in the one hand North Korea which is more advanced than us in enriching uranium and nuclear technologies has no problem with the IAEA and on the other, Iran must every day face new but fabricated problems”, he said, adding that “one aspect of this political fascism is to keep Iran as a second rate nation deprived on advanced technologies”.

According to Mr. Larijani, considered as the closest advisors to Mr. Ahmadi Nezhad, the “American political fascism” has for goal to “define all the human dignity according to American standards”.

“According to this theory, it is to the United States to say what is legitimate and what is not. It is under this theory that the Americans say Iran does not have the right of possessing nuclear fuel cycle”, he told the students, adding “but we tell them we shall not bow”.

In his view, considered as the harshest criticism of the Bush Administration by a senior Iranian official with the new Government, the specific particularity of this fascism is that it has “no regard for any judiciary system. It is one sided and aggressive in essence”, he explained.

Iran has threatened to block U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities unless the IAEA and the Europeans accepts Iran’s right to nuclear technologies for peaceful aims.

“Why is that the NPT that must help us in getting most advanced atomic technologies has done nothing but crating difficulties for us”, he went on, reminding the students that the first research reactor was introduced to Iran 40 years ago by the Americans “who had also agreed to Iran having nuclear power stations but changed their mind immediately after the Islamic Revolution (of 1979) stopping all contracts and agreements”.

To numerous questions by students, he said he does not think America was in a position to open a new front attacking Iran. “They want to frighten us, but we are not afraid of them, for they know that war against Iran would be a very difficult one”.

On India’s positive vote for the last IAEA resolution, a vote that both surprised and upset the Iranians, he said the Indians had acted wrongly and unfriendly due to long historical cultural and political ties, but this is not a reason to cut relations with New Delhi and added that the project of construction a gas line linking Iran’s huge natural gas fields in the Persian Gulf to India via Pakistan would go according to plans.

He also confirmed that Mr. Cyrus Naseri, the most straight forward speaking of the three former senior negotiators with the IAEA and the EU3 is no longer with the new negotiating team, which is now led by Mr. Javad Va’idi in place of Mr. Mohammad Hoseyn Moussavian.

Mr. Larijani’s observations at the Sharif University were confirmed by Mr.

Mohammad Sa’idi, the deputy head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, reiterating that Iran would not accept any conditions for resuming talks with the European Union that broke off in August, an allusion to demands that Iran again halt its uranium conversion operations.

"If the case could be settled through practical, logical, legal and technical solutions then the positive result of the negotiations will be in favour of Iran as well as Europe and the United States", he said quoted by the official Islamic Republic News Agency IRNA.

“Talks are always preferable to threats”, Mr. Sa’idi said in an apparent reference to last IAEA resolution, revealing that Tehran would "soon" send teams to several European, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern nations in an effort to inform them about Iran's position in the hope of stregthening the hands of Iran at the next IAEA Board meeting. ENDS IRAN NUCLEAR 91005