Iran to send ‘rational’ response to IAEA’s report; Arabs, Israelis to attend nuke talks

Iran is to send an “analytical” response to a report suggesting it was pursuing nuclear weapons, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday, a day before the U.N. watchdog meets on the issue.

“We have decided to draft and send an analytical letter with logical and rational responses to (International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya) Amano’s recent report,” the Iranian state television website quoted Salehi as saying.

Salehi said the letter would be distributed to countries and international organizations.
His announcement came before a meeting of the IAEA’s 35-member board on Thursday and Friday to consider the November 8 report which strongly suggested Iran was researching nuclear warheads, although it stopped short of saying so explicitly.

The United States and its allies are keen for the board to issue a resolution condemning Iran or referring it to the U.N. Security Council, according to a European diplomat in Vienna, where the IAEA is headquartered.

But Russia and China are seen as reluctant to go along, with Moscow criticizing the report and likening it to the false intelligence presented by the United States in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Israeli officials have already raised the specter of military action against Iran's nuclear sites, based on the report.

Tehran has categorically denied it is seeking atomic weapons and dismissed the IAEA report as based on “false” information from Western intelligence services.

Salehi, who said Iran had already responded to the points raised in the report in a 117-page letter, called the IAEA report “unfair” and accused Amano of making a “hasty” move that damaged the watchdog's reputation.

However Salehi also downplayed recent comments by parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, that Iran could review its cooperation with the IAEA over the report.

“The West wants to drive us into a hasty reaction and would not mind being able to say ‘Iran has left the NPT (the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty supervised by the IAEA)’,” he said.

Salehi said his country remained in “contact with the agency so that the situation does not worsen.”

The foreign minister was also quoted as saying that Iran’s nuclear activities “are making powerful progress.”

Iran is subject to four sets of U.N. sanctions and additional unilateral Western sanctions over its uranium enrichment program, which it refuses to suspend.

Nuke talks

Meanwhile, Arab states and Israel plan to attend a rare round of talks next week on efforts to free the world of nuclear weapons but Iran has yet to say whether it will take part in the meeting in Vienna, diplomats said on Wednesday.

The Nov. 21-22 forum, hosted by the IAEA, is seen as symbolically significant in seeking to bring regional foes together at the same venue and start a dialogue, even though no concrete outcome is expected.

If conducted smoothly with toned-down rhetoric on both sides, it could send a positive signal ahead of a planned international conference next year on ridding the Middle East of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

“It is a good opportunity for everybody to sit and talk but I don’t think it is going to achieve a tangible result,” a Western diplomat said.

Israel is widely believed to harbor the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, drawing frequent Arab and Iranian condemnation.