Washington, September 28: In an attempt to distort facts, the US Secretary of State implies that Iran was not the first to make an announcement about its new nuclear plant.
“This latest incident concerning the facility at Qom would have been disclosed were it for peaceful purposes. There would have already been IAEA inspections,” Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a Sunday televised interview.
“The facility had only become known through our working with partners to discover it prior to the Iranian announcement” she added.
Ignoring findings of a recent NIE update, Clinton said the Iranians must “present convincing evidence as to the purpose of their nuclear program” in the October 1 meeting with the P5+1 (permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany).
The National Intelligence Estimate update, which was put together by US spy agencies, clarified that there was no evidence to prove Iran’s nuclear work was in anyway military.
Clinton claimed that the plant’s “discovery” gave a sense of urgency to the upcoming talks in Geneva, adding that Washington did not believe Tehran could prove its peaceful intentions at the meeting.
Clinton made the remarks while Iran had written a letter to the UN nuclear watchdog on September 21 (days before the US publicized the issue), saying that it was constructing a second plant for uranium enrichment.
Tehran sent the letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency 12 months prior to the date set for the plant to enter operational phase.
Document 153 of Agency regulations, obliges member states to inform the body of the existence of enrichment plants only “six” months before the introduction of nuclear materials into the facility.
Clinton did, however, welcome the positive move taken by Iran to ask International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to check the new uranium enrichment plant.
Clinton’s comments come as the US and its allies try to portray Tehran’s early announcement about the still under-construction nuclear facility, as a sign of “deception”. Ironically, the efforts coincide with confessions by top US officials that the White House already knew about the plan.
“The Americans say that they knew of the new plant prior to Iran’s announcement and have presented aerial pictures of the location, so why are they claiming that the project was clandestine?” head of Iran’s nuclear program, Ali Akbar Salehi asks.
Despite Western attempts to accuse Iran of “secrecy”, several days after the publication of Iran’s letter, a US counter-proliferation official confirmed that Washington knew about the second Iranian nuclear plant “for several years”.
US officials continue to represent Iran’s clear openness as a “hidden agenda”, while avoiding a series of questions raised by Tehran about how they conduct their nuclear activities.
In a Sunday interview, Iran’s IAEA ambassador Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh accused the US, Britain, and France of deceiving the international community over their nuclear programs, claims that Clinton failed to address in her comments.
“Those three countries in fact have violated for the last 40 years NPT articles,” he said, accusing the UK of deceiving the world and its own people over its covert Trident (a ballistic missile equipped with nuclear-warheads) submarines program.
“This is the real deception… Mr. Brown has to answer to the international community because this is a shocking threat to international peace and security.
“France is also working on the nuclear weapon programs continuously… Americans are working hard on the nuclear weapon posture review. These are all deceptions and concealment.”
Western countries have a “long-term strategy” to “destroy and jeopardize the spirit of cooperation between Iran and the IAEA in order to find an excuse and pretext for sanctions and other measures,” said Soltaniyeh.
—–Agencies