TEHRAN, 10 August 2004 — Iran said yesterday that Washington had no grounds to send its nuclear case to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. US officials have expressed growing concern about Tehran’s nuclear program in recent weeks, making it clear Washington wants Iran’s case sent to the Security Council to prevent it from developing nuclear arms.
Iran denies any intention of building atomic weapons. It says its nuclear program is needed to generate electricity to meeting rising demand. “Only the Americans say Iran’s case will be referred to the United Nations Security Council. But to send Iran’s case to the Security Council they need reasons and we have to have committed violations,” Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters.
“Iran has not committed any violations, and whatever Iran has done is in accordance with its international obligations,” he added. Tehran last month said it had resumed making parts for uranium enrichment centrifuges, which can be used to make bomb material. But Iran said it is entitled to carry out such activities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and says it will not give up its right to pursue enrichment technology to produce fuel for nuclear power reactors.
Meanwhile, Iran yesterday played down fresh accusations that it was stirring up violence in Iraq and sought to secure the release of an Iranian diplomat seized by militants in Iraq five days ago. The charges leveled by Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim Al-Shalaan and the kidnapping of Iran’s consul to Karbala highlighted growing mistrust between the two neighbors which fought each other to a standstill in a bitter 1980-1988 war.
Iran’s government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh brushed aside Shalaan’s comments as typical of “a newcomer government which is naturally disorganized in the beginning.” Iran has cautiously welcomed the Iraqi interim government as a step toward full sovereignty and routinely denies US and Iraqi accusations it is meddling in Iraq.
Ramazanzadeh said kidnapped diplomat Fereidoun Jahani was a long-serving Foreign Ministry official despite footage provided by his captors showing credentials in his name bearing the logo of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Meanwhile, the chief of Iran’s police has told women not to dress up like “models”, amid fresh signs yesterday of a mounting crackdown on skimpy dressers still defying the Islamic republic’s dress code. “In accordance with the law, the police are confronting people who appear in public in an indecent and inappropriate way, and who are regarded by the law enforcement officials as models,” police chief Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told the official news agency IRNA.
“This is social deviancy and cannot be solved by normal police operations,” Ghalibaf added. Noting that many arrests have taken place in the past two months, he said one of the initiatives in dealing with poorly veiled women and girls was to invite their parents to meetings organized by the police.
