TEHRAN, 16 September 2005 — Iran is ready to share its nuclear technology with other Islamic countries, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying yesterday. The comments heightened Western concerns about Tehran’s nuclear program just ahead of a key meeting of the UN’s nuclear watchdog this month.
“The Islamic Republic never seeks weapons of mass destruction and with respect to the needs of Islamic countries, we are ready to transfer nuclear know-how to these countries,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
The remarks were made during Ahmadinejad’s meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, IRNA said.
Washington and its allies say Iran has failed to provide full and timely information about its nuclear program and are alarmed that Tehran last month broke UN seals at a uranium processing facility.
A vote on sending Iran’s nuclear case to the UN Security Council may be taken at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board on Sept. 19.
Iran’s state media reported that Ahmadinejad, who took office last month, had also held meetings with the leaders of Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan and Chile in New York.
A British Foreign Office spokesman said it was not clear what Ahamdinejad’s offer to Islamic countries involved.
“In any case, this is not the pressing question,” he said. “The issue is the lack of confidence in Iran’s nuclear program as a result of two decades of non-disclosures and concealment.”
Iran insists it has every right as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop a full atomic program to generate electricity. “We have firmly decided to use this technology for peaceful purposes within the framework of the NPT, international regulations and cooperation with the IAEA,” IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
Western powers appeared yesterday to back away from an early move to refer Iran’s nuclear program to the UN Security Council. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the three major European powers that have been negotiating with Iran on its nuclear ambitions — Britain, France and Germany — were still giving priority to talks.
“We want to pursue the dialogue. We want Iran to suspend various activities. We think there is still room for negotiations,” he told a news conference at UN headquarters. If that failed, there would be no choice but to take the matter to the Security Council, he added.
Earlier, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that the United States and its European allies may lack the votes to haul Iran before the highest United Nations body next week over its resumption of uranium conversion.
“If we get a referral on Sept. 19, that will be good, but I think the issue of a referral is something that we’ll be working for a while,” she told Fox News.
