Roundup: Iran hails IAEA decision as farsighted

Iran on Friday hailed as rational and farsighted the decision of the UN nuclear watchdog to put off referral of Iran's case to the UN Security Council.

"Wisdom, farsightedness, precaution and avoidance of adventurism seemed to prevail over the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Thursday meeting," Expediency Council Chairman and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying.

The 35-nation IAEA board of governors decided in Vienna on Thursday to hold off the threatened referral of Iran's nuclear issue to the UN Security Council in order to give Iran more time to consider a compromise proposal to break the deadlock over its controversial nuclear program.

In late September, the IAEA adopted a resolution which found Iran in noncompliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ( NPT), paving the way for the Islamic republic to be referred to the UN Security Council.

It also called on Iran to resume suspension of uranium conversion activities, return to nuclear talks with the European Union and step up cooperation with IAEA inspectors.

Tehran and the EU trio of Britain, France and Germany are expected to resume talks in early December to discuss a Russian proposal which permits Iran to conduct uranium conversion on condition that the enrichment stage be moved to Russia, a measure that is aimed at preventing Tehran from making atom bombs.

The EU-Iran talks broke off in August when Iran restarted uranium conversion work it suspended last November in protest at the EU insistence that Iran give up its legal right to peaceful nuclear technology including uranium enrichment, which can be used to either fuel nuclear power plant and or make atom bombs.

Voicing hope that "the traces of rationality" observed at the meeting would continue in the future, Rafsanjani said that Iran was ready for cooperation with the IAEA to clarify certain ambiguities but warned that it would "not tolerate bullying".

Meanwhile, a senior conservative lawmaker contributed the IAEA decision to a bill passed by the Iranian parliament last Sunday which requires the government to cease all voluntary confidence- building measures if the country is referred.

"The plan approved by the Majlis on the suspension of voluntary cooperation with the IAEA ...was also influential," Alaeddin Borujerdi, Chairman of the Majlis (Parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee and member of the nuclear committee of the Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by the semi- official Mehr news agency as saying.

The voluntary measures include the suspension of all uranium enrichment related activities and the implementation of the additional protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows the IAEA to carry out snap inspections of its nuclear facilities.

In Vienna, deputy director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Mohammad Saeedi said that the IAEA's decision had proven that its September resolution on Iran was illegal.

"The report presented by IAEA Director General Mohammad ElBaradei and the statement read out at the meeting (on the agency 's postponement of the referral) showed that the resolution on Iran in September had no legal basis whatsoever," Saeedi told Mehr.

ElBaradei presented a report about the agency's inspection on Iran on November 18, which said that Tehran had improved its cooperation with the IAEA on its nuclear issue but still needs to do more to clarify its nuclear plans.

The United States accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons secretly, a charge rejected by Tehran as politically motivated.

Source: Xinhua