Nuclear Pressure on Iran Is a Scandal -Rafsanjani
Fri October 3, 2003 08:28 AM ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) - An influential former Iranian president called international pressure on Iran's atomic program a scandal on Friday but described terms under which the country would agree to snap nuclear inspections.
Under intense U.S. pressure, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) set an October 31 deadline for Iran to prove it is not seeking atomic weapons. Iran has always denied the charge.
"The hypocritical policy of the Americans and Westerners has no justification. This is a scandal," Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told worshippers at Friday prayers at Tehran University in remarks broadcast live on state media.
He said the Islamic Republic was willing to sign up to snap inspections but only if it were granted the same terms he insisted the United States was demanding for itself.
The United States has signed, but not yet ratified, the so-called Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that would permit snap inspections of nuclear sites.
"Our conditions...are the same as those the Americans want," said Rafsanjani, who heads the Expediency Council, a powerful body that arbitrates between the predominantly reformist parliament and Iran's hardline watchdog.
Inspections should not infringe on domestic security or religious sensibilities nor open a path for inspectors to intrude on "secrets" unrelated to the nuclear program, he said.
Iranian conservatives view inspections as tantamount to allowing spies into the country.
The cleric, a top adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, added the IAEA would have to stand by its half of the bargain which Iran has argued is to offer technological assistance as a reward for putting pen to paper.
However, signing the Additional Protocol is no longer enough to halt the pressure from an increasingly united international front.
The IAEA's resolution has demanded not only "unrestricted access" for IAEA inspectors but also a suspension of uranium enrichment. Enriched uranium can be used as fuel in power plants, or as bomb material if highly enriched.
Rafsanjani was the latest in a string of Iranian politicians to say Iran was willing to co-operate with inspectors under terms that safeguard sovereignty.
But the suspension of uranium enrichment is now the thornier issue and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi has said Iran would sign the Additional Protocol as long as it were allowed to continue its enrichment program.
Nuclear inspectors arrived in Iran on Thursday.
Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami was quoted by the students' news agency on Thursday as saying the IAEA resolution was inappropriate but Iran would cooperate.
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