TEHRAN, 30 January 2005 — Iran’s supreme leader yesterday accused European powers of not showing a desire to resolve the row over the country’s nuclear program and said they must take nuclear negotiations with Tehran seriously.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran was committed to talks with Britain, France and Germany, but signaled frustration that they were making little headway.

“The Europeans negotiating with Iran should know that they are dealing with a great, cultured nation ... if Iranian officials feel that there is no seriousness in the European negotiations, the process will change,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by the Iranian media.

His comments followed the emergence of reports that the EU was hardening its stance toward Iran and calling on Tehran to completely dismantle its nuclear fuel program in order to guarantee that it does not seek atomic weapons.

Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed El-Baradei said yesterday that he was receiving “good cooperation” from Iran.

“I am saying that we are getting good cooperation from Iran,” the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog told journalists at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“In the last 15 months we have made good strides in understanding the nature and the scope of its program,” El-Baradei said.

Iran, accused by Washington of trying to build an atomic bomb, has suspended uranium enrichment as a confidence-building measure but the EU now wants the Islamic republic to definitively abandon enrichment as well as any activities for making plutonium.

Khamenei told the Europeans that “wasting time could not impede Iran’s path to nuclear technology since it is a part of its national interest.”

Iran insists that its nuclear activities are peaceful and that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty guarantees its right to peaceful enrichment activities.

El-Baradei said the IAEA had no evidence that Iran was developing nuclear weapons through its atomic energy program. “We cannot work on the basis of beliefs, we have to work on the facts,” the UN nuclear chief said, while acknowledging that IAEA was relying largely on its own equipment, inspections and information gathering.

“If people have information and on this basis are coming to the conclusion that this is a weapons program, then I would very much like them to share it. Right now we are not getting much, so we are relying on our own abilities,” he added.

“As long as we have cooperation, and we do not see a smoking gun, the international community should bear with us,” El-Baradei insisted.

But at a closed-door meeting in Geneva this month, the so-called EU3 of Britain, France and Germany told Iran: “Nothing short of full cessation and dismantling of Iran’s fuel cycle efforts would give the EU3 the objective guarantees they need that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful.”

The Geneva meeting was the second round of talks on a potentially lucrative trade pact after a deal clinched in November by the European bloc’s three most powerful members for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, the key process that makes what can be fuel for nuclear reactors but also the explosive core of atomic bombs.

“Europeans know that Iran under no circumstances will give up (uranium) enrichment for peaceful purposes,” Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani told the conservative Mehr news agency.

“Europeans also know that the duration of the negotiations and suspension of the enrichment is limited, and after this round of discussions has lapsed, the Islamic Republic of Iran will seek its rightful rights,” he added.

“The European Union, especially the three countries, know that Iran is firm on its decisions and I do not think the Europeans want the negotiations to reach a dead end,” Rowhani said.

“Both sides have to try to reach a satisfactory solution,” he added.