TEHRAN, 22 November 2004 — Iran pledged yesterday it was still committed to suspending parts of its sensitive nuclear activities as of today and that alarm over its last minute uranium conversion activities was merely US “propaganda”.
“The suspension will begin tomorrow. We have said that we will suspend our enrichment activities and we will do it,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
Iran agreed a week ago in a deal with Britain, France and Germany to suspend as of Monday all its uranium enrichment related activities, including making uranium gas, as a confidence-building measure in order to avoid being taken to the UN Security Council.
But diplomats have said that Iran was continuing to produce the uranium feedstuff that is the first step in the enrichment process, only days before the deadline — in what critics of the regime have taken as an act of bad faith.
In addition, US President George W. Bush sharply warned Iran on Saturday that reports the Islamic republic has accelerated production of the feedstuff known as UF6 was a “very serious matter”.
But Asefi said “the news about the production of UF6 ahead of the suspension is just a part of the propaganda to weaken relations between Iran and the (International Atomic Energy) Agency, and the work on building trust with the Europeans.”
“What we have been doing over the past few days conforms with the Paris accord and has been carried out under the supervision of the agency,” he asserted.
This week the IAEA will be checking Iran’s enrichment suspension, ahead of a meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors in Vienna on Thursday. The suspension must be verified if Iran is to escape a possible referral to the Security Council.
Iran claims its nuclear program, parts of which it long failed to disclose, is a strictly peaceful effort to produce electricity. The United States says it is merely a convenient cover for weapons development.
But Iran again accused its arch-foe of manipulating intelligence.
“In the world today, nothing can be hidden from the media, public opinion or intelligence services and when we say we haven’t, we mean that we haven’t,” Asefi said of the allegations.
“The United States is furious over the recent development and this kind of comment is a sign of this anger,” was how Asefi explained Bush’s remarks.
“Trickery and escalation have become the principles of American foreign policy, and that is why they are internationally isolated,” he added, saying Iran was “not pessimistic over the IAEA meeting”.
“The Americans are not happy about our cooperation with the Europeans, but taking into account that we have cooperated with the IAEA and Europe there is nothing to be worried about.”
In the latest US allegations, US Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters en route to a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in Chile that Washington has information suggesting that Iran is seeking to adapt its missiles to carry nuclear warheads.
The US State Department was then put on the defensive after unnamed officials were quoted as accusing him of releasing supposedly unverified intelligence information.
“Powell’s remarks were so baseless,” top Iranian national security official and nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani told state television.
“I think Powell himself realized his mistake. I think Powell fell into a trap and has again given himself a bad name.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s defense minister has complained that international trade controls and the Islamic republic’s isolation were limiting the country’s arms exports to just $100 million a year, reports said yesterday.
“A number of controls have been set up around the world and we have been given various political labels. Otherwise we would have, as is our natural right, a market of $500 million,” Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani was quoted as saying.
But he nevertheless added that “we should reach this objective”, with the country “making and exporting weapons of Western quality but with Eastern prices.”
“Our export markets cover every continent,” Shamkhani said, but gave no further details.
Regarding what weapons Iran produced, he only said the Islamic republic’s military-industrial complex had a diverse output that ranged from sugar to ballistic missiles.
