Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki lashed out at the UN atomic watchdog on Monday, saying it was implementing “law of the jungle”, as Britain and Germany warned of new sanctions against Tehran.
A defiant Mottaki said Tehran will continue to enrich uranium, the most controversial aspect of its nuclear programme, a day after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government declared plans to build 10 new enrichment plants.
In a separate remark, Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani questioned the importance of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), raising concerns about how long Tehran would remain a member given its determination to pursue its nuclear programme in defiance of international censure.
Mottaki said Friday’s resolution passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was “illogical” and “destroys” the very foundation on which the nuclear body is based.
Iranian security forces beat anti-government protesters with batons Wednesday on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover. The counter-demonstrations were the opposition’s first major show of force on Tehran’s streets in nearly two months.
The opposition sought to display unity and resolve after relentless crackdowns on their protests following the disputed June presidential election. Though the crowds were far smaller than during last summer’s outrage, authorities were ready with the same sweeping measures: dispatching paramilitary units to key locations and disrupting mobile phones, text messaging and Internet access to frustrate protest organizers.
The chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on Monday accused the United States, Britain and Pakistan of having links with the Sunni militants responsible for a suicide bombing that killed five senior Guard commanders and 37 others.
Iran’s president said those behind Sunday’s bombing are hiding across the border in Pakistan, and in a phone call with his Pakistani counterpart on Monday he demanded their arrest.
A Sunni rebel group that has waged a low-level insurgency in southeastern Iran to protest what it says is government persecution of an ethnic minority in the region claimed responsibility for the attack. The claim was posted Monday on an Islamic Web site that usually publishes al-Qaida statements. Its authenticity could not be verified.
Jundallah has carried out sporadic kidnappings and attacks in recent years — including targeting the Revolutionary Guard and Shiite civilians. In Sunday’s attack, a suicide bomber with explosives strapped around his waist struck as the Guard commanders were entering a sports complex to meet tribal leaders to discuss Sunni-Shiite cooperation in the Pishin district near the Pakistani border.
The U.S. and five other world powers began high-stakes talks Thursday with Iran to demand a freeze of its nuclear activities, with a senior U.S. official saying Washington is open to rare one-on-one talks with Iranian diplomats.
The EU’s Javier Solana, who is formally heading the one-day negotiations with chief Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili, was upbeat before the start of the talks in an 18th century villa in Geneva. The U.S. official briefed reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the talks.
A bilateral meeting with Iran would reflect Washington’s determination to get results from the meeting.
The fact that the meeting is taking place at all offers some hope, reflecting both sides’ desire to talk, despite a spike in tensions over last week’s revelations by Iran that it had been secretly building a new uranium enrichment plant.
Yet Tehran’s acknowledgment that it had kept silent on the plant — which can make both nuclear fuel and fissile warhead cores — has left the Western powers with only modest expectations about the success of the talks.
While the West fears that Iran’s nuclear program aims to make a bomb, Iran insists the program is strictly for peaceful use and has refused to negotiate any limits on it.
Iran said it successfully completed two days of missile tests that including launching its longest-range missiles on Monday, weapons capable of carrying a warhead and striking Israel, U.S. military bases in the Middle East, and parts of Europe. State television said the powerful Revolutionary Guard, which controls Iran’s missile program, successfully tested upgraded versions of the medium-range Shahab-3 and Sajjil missiles with can fly up to 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers). It was the third and final round of missile tests in two days of drills by the Guard.
Iran has informed the UN atomic watchdog that it is building a second uranium enrichment plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday.
“On September 21, Iran informed the IAEA in a letter that a new pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction in the country,” the watchdog’s spokesman Marc Vidricaire said in a statement.
“Iran assured the agency in the letter that ‘further complementary information will be provided in an appropriate and due time’,” Vidricaire said.
“In response, the IAEA has requested Iran to provide specific information and access to the facility as soon as possible. This will allow the agency to assess safeguards verification requirements for the facility.”
So far, Iran has only had one uranium enrichment plant in operation, in Natanz.
“The letter stated that the enrichment level would be up to 5.0 percent,” which is a low level of enrichment and not a sufficiently high to make the fissile material for an atomic bomb.
Low enriched uranium is used to make nuclear fuel.
“The agency also understands from Iran that no nuclear material has been introduced into the facility,” the statement added.
