Tehran, February 21: Iranian former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani lashed out at the UN nuclear watchdog on Saturday for presenting what he said was a biased report against Tehran.
“It is clearly evident that a part of this report has been presented following recommendation and under the influence of foreign elements,” Rafsanjani said, referring to Thursday’s release of a report by the UN body expressing “concerns” that Tehran could be developing a nuclear warhead.
“It cannot be said that this is the work of an independent international centre,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Rafsanjani as saying about the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iranian officials have dismissed the report and the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei again denied on Friday that Tehran was seeking atomic weapons.
Iran maintains its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purpose, to generate energy for its growing population, already dependant on importing 40% of its gasoline needs.
In the United States a key lawmaker said Washington should impose an embargo on gasoline deliveries to Iran.
“The time is running out,” said Representative Mark Kirk, co-chair of the bi-partisan House Iran Working Group.
Rafsanjani, who has been severely criticised by conservatives for backing groups inside Iran opposed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the report was a “psychological war by the United States and others” against Tehran.
“The volume of threats and biased political suggestions which seek to generate a consensus against Iran have been unprecedented. But they will not prevail,” he said.
Washington is drumming up support for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran.
Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast too criticised the IAEA report.
“We expect the IAEA to preserve its identity and reputation and not allow the political will of some countries to be imposed on the world community,” Mehmanparast said, according to IRNA.
Denouncing the report as a US attempt at politically pressurising Iran, Mehmanparast also questioned the position of nations that are not signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and have acquired nuclear weapons without similar levels of criticism.
“These countries have nuclear weapons, but nobody questions them,” he said in a clear allusion to Israel, which has the Midde East’s sole if undeclared nuclear aresenal.
Iran maintains that as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty it has a right to pursue the development of nuclear technology for civil purposes and that its activities are all under the oversight of the UN watchdog.
In Moscow Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Riabkov said meanwhile his country is opposed to “crippling sanctions” against Tehran.
Khamenei, the country’s commander-in-chief, said Iran’s religious beliefs meant it was against the use of nuclear weapons.
“Recently some Western and US officials have been repeating some outdated and nonsensical comments that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons,” he said.
“Iran will not get emotional in responding to these nonsensical comments, since our religious beliefs are against the use of such weapons,” he told commanders at the launch of Iran’s first domestically made naval destroyer in the Gulf.
“We in no way believe in an atomic weapon and do not seek one.”
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, said the documents cited in the report were “fabricated and thus do not have any validity.”
“I have also said many times that when they showed these documents to us none of the documents had any confidential or secret stamps on them,” Soltanieh said.
Soltanieh repeated Tehran’s stance that Iran’s nuclear programme was peaceful, insisting that Iran “will never halt its peaceful nuclear activities nor stop its cooperation with the agency.”
—Agencies