Iranian President Raps Nuclear Watchdog

Yahoo News:

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has rapped the UN's nuclear watchdog, calling its decisions politically motivated and made under the influence of world powers. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is meeting on Monday to make an assessment of Iran's nuclear programme that will be sent to the UN Security Council, which could then take punitive action.

Ahmadinejad's visit to Malaysia, which ends Friday, is part of a campaign to avert sanctions and promote Iran's stance that it has a right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

The outspoken president said in a speech that one of the major challenges facing the Muslim world was "the increasing loss of credibility by international organisations".

"Regrettably most international organisations have turned into political organisations and the influence of great powers prevents them from taking fair and legally sound decisions," he said.

"IAEA's treatment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the board of governors of the IAEA for that matter, their approach towards the Islamic Republic of Iran is a purely politically motivated action."

However, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who is on a worldwide tour to explain Tehran's position, said there was still room for compromise to resolve the stand-off.

Iran has requested last-ditch talks with Britain, France and Germany later Friday aimed at easing Western fears that the Islamic republic is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

"We are planning our positions, also our readiness, to reach, to compromise, based on all parties' benefits," Mottaki said of the negotiations to be held in Vienna.

"It means achieving the essential rights of Iran, which is realising the right of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and from the other side, removing any concerns, if there (are any)," he told reporters.

"Any plan which takes us in that compromise, any proposal. From the very beginning we were saying that we were ready for compromise, but it must have the two elements as I explained."

Ahmadinejad said that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty recognised the right of member states to have access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes but that "certain powers" believed this right could be withdrawn.

He warned that such discrimination would galvanise Muslims worldwide to rise up against Western hegemony, and that if anyone imposed their will on his nation "the Iranian nation will make them sorry".

"Domination and bullying will not last much longer. Bullies and Zionists beware -- you are going to fall," he said. "This awakening is on the increase and its signs can be seen all around the world." READ MORE

"If some parties want to, outside the regulations, impose something on my nation, experience tells me and them that the Iranian nation will make them sorry," he said in a question-and-answer session later.

As Ahmadinejad's visit drew to a close, he was given a red-carpet welcome to the Federal Mosque in Kuala Lumpur for Friday prayers.

Hundreds of bystanders gathered there for a glance of the president, who spent some time with them, hugging and kissing several children who were ushered through the crowd by security officials.

The trio of European states that negotiate for the EU on Iran has warned Tehran in writing that progress Friday is totally dependent on Iran stopping uranium enrichment and cooperating with UN nuclear inspections.

The United States has given only half-hearted support to the latest diplomatic initiative, which follows talks in Moscow on a Russian compromise proposal that failed to make any breakthrough.