TEHRAN, 8 August 2003 — Iran has again denied any intention of acquiring weapons of mass destruction, calling them “anti-Islamic, inhuman and immoral”, the official news agency IRNA reported yesterday.

“Iran has clearly indicated that atomic weapons have no place in the country’s military and security plans and we consider ‘haram’ (banned by Islam), inhuman and immoral the acquisition of arms of mass destruction,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi was quoted by IRNA as saying.

“Iran’s nuclear programs is not at all a military program, it is peaceful and under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” he added. Assefi was reacting to recent claims in the Los Angeles Times that Iran was close to reaching the capability of producing an atomic bomb.

The LA Times article was “totally false, unreal, irresponsible and had the aim of creating a (hostile) atmosphere and conducting a negative propaganda campaign against Iran”, he added.

Based on information gathered from various secret reports, the LA Times claimed to have proof that Tehran was using its nuclear program as a cover for developing an atomic bomb.

The paper claimed that scientific and technological help from Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan had left Iran closer to producing nuclear weapons than Iraq ever had been, and could manufacture its first bomb within three years, according to some experts. Iran denied yesterday that nuclear scientists from these countries had helped its atomic program and reiterated that its nuclear aims were confined to civilian purposes.

“This paper’s claim about Iran’s cooperation with other countries for obtaining nuclear technology is a sheer lie,” Asefi said.

“This report is irresponsible and is an obvious misuse of professional journalism,” the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday denied that Pakistan had provided any help to Iran’s nuclear program. Iran is known to have imported some uranium from China in the early 1990s and Russia is helping Iran complete its first nuclear energy reactor in the southern port of Bushehr. Iran insists that it has no intention of building nuclear weapons and says it merely wants to use nuclear technology to generate electricity.

“Iran’s nuclear technology has been developed based on Iranian scientists’ efforts and it is purely for civilian and peaceful purposes,” Assefi said.

Iran is under pressure from countries suspicious of its motives, notably the United States, to sign a protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty opening the way to snap inspections of its suspected nuclear sites by the IAEA.

Meanwhile, Iran has categorically denied holding secret talks with the United States over the terrorist network Al-Qaeda, the students’ news agency ISNA reported yesterday.

Government spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh told ISNA that there had not been any secret talks on Al-Qaeda or any other issue.

The Arabic daily Al-Watan had reported that indirect secret talks were held over Al-Qaeda between President Mohammad Khatami and his American counterpart George W. Bush via a close unnamed aide of Khatami and US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

After Teheran disclosed last month that it was detaining senior Al-Qaeda members, there were reports that the two sides were in contact about swapping the militants with members of the Iranian rebel group Peoples Mujahedeen (MKO).