TEHRAN, 30 March 2004 — Iran’s Foreign Ministry has summoned an Irish diplomat here to complain over “irresponsible and interventionist” European Union criticism of the Islamic republic’s human rights record. State media and the Irish Embassy said Aidan Cronin, the embassy’s first secretary, was called in for a dressing down on Sunday from the Foreign Ministry’s legal affairs director Muhammad Mehdi Akhondzadeh.
The official news agency IRNA said Akhondzadeh made an official protest to Ireland — the current holder of the rotating EU presidency — and gave the diplomat a rundown of “the Islamic republic’s progress in the domain of human rights.” Ireland’s ambassador to Iran, Thomas Bolster, is currently out of the country. “Iran wishes the European Union to have a realistic view of Iran’s human rights activities,” Akhondzadeh was quoted as saying by IRNA.
At the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva on Thursday, the EU warned that it had seen little progress in Iran’s human rights dossier, which Brussels has effectively made a precondition to improved trade ties. The EU also openly admitted that its policy of constructive engagement with Tehran on human rights was flagging.
“Unfortunately, the fourth round of our human rights dialogue with Iran has not taken place due to Iran’s failure to confirm the dates agreed,” Ireland’s envoy Mary Whelan told the Commission on behalf of the EU presidency. “We regret that overall we see little improvement in the human rights situation in the country,” she added.
Meanwhile, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said yesterday the country has stopped building centrifuges to win the world’s trust over its nuclear program. Gholamreza Aghazadeh said the suspension of centrifuge construction had been ordered by the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s top decision-making body.
The move came as IAEA inspectors carried out checks on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran suspended uranium enrichment last year under strong international pressure over the aims and dimensions of its nuclear program. But it continued to build centrifuges, which are used in enrichment, despite criticism that this violated the spirit of its pledge to cease enrichment.
State television’s website quoted Aghazadeh as saying: “The Islamic Republic of Iran has voluntarily expanded (the enrichment) suspension to include the production of components and assembly.”
An official of the Atomic Energy Organization explained that this referred to centrifuges. “So far, we had suspended injecting gas into centrifuges as part of a deal reached with the European countries,” the official told The Associated Press, referring to the enrichment suspension.
