TEHRAN, 20 October 2005 — Iran said yesterday it shared the optimism of the head of the UN nuclear watchdog over a resumption of talks on its controversial nuclear program with the Europeans. “I too am optimistic about a resumption of negotiations and I hope it will materialize,” Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani told the official news agency IRNA from South Africa where he is on an official visit.
But he warned that Iran would abandon the additional protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty that provides for snap inspections of its nuclear facilities if its program is referred to the UN Security Council. “Iran will stop implementing the additional protocol, so there will be less inspections” by monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Larijani said.
Meanwhile, diplomatic and industry sources also said that Iran is blocking imports from Britain and South Korea as an apparent punishment for their opposition to Iran’s nuclear program. “We have received a verbal order from the Commerce Ministry, about a trade ban imposed on South Korean and British companies,” an official at a state manufacturing company, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. He said the order was due to the two countries’ “hostility” toward Iran, such as over its nuclear program which Tehran insists is purely for peaceful purposes.
Presidential chief of staff Gholamhossein Elham declined to confirm the import bans, but the semi-official ISNA students news agency quoted him as saying: “Political relations and views definitely have an impact on economic relations.” “Iran’s political, economic and cultural relations with other countries are connected to one another and these relations have an impact on each other,” he added.
Diplomats said Iran typically does not publicly acknowledge such moves but there was enough evidence to confirm the order had been given.
