TT On-The-Go
TT Feed
| New Iranian envoy hopeful disputes with IAEA can be resolved |
|
 |
 |
 |
Font Size 
 TEHRAN – Iran will cooperate with the UN nuclear agency to find ways to “overcome existing issues once and for all”, Tehran’s new envoy said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Ambassador Reza Najafi, at his first board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also repeated Iran’s stance that it would not cede its legitimate right to a peaceful nuclear energy program.
“Based on its rights and obligations recognized under the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), Iran is ready to faithfully engage and remove any ambiguity on its nuclear activities,” Najafi told the 35-nation governing board of the IAEA.
Iran is at odds with Western powers, which claim its nuclear program may be covertly directed at giving it the means to build nuclear weapons. Tehran denies this and rejects any illegal limits on its enrichment of uranium or a more intrusive IAEA inspection regime.
Separately from big power diplomacy to resolve a decade-old dispute, the IAEA has held 10 rounds of talks with Iran since early 2012 in a bid to resume further investigation into the country’s nuclear program.
A new round of talks is scheduled to be held in Vienna on September 27.
Najafi, appointed as Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA after President Hassan Rohani took office on August 3, cited a strong political will on Tehran’s part to “constructively interact” on the nuclear issue.
“We are looking forward to working closely with the Director General (Yukiya Amano) and his team in the coming days,” the soft-spoken career diplomat and disarmament expert said.
Asked whether he was hopeful that an agreement could be reached in the Vienna meeting, he later told a brief news conference, “We sit together, we directly and frankly discuss the differences. We hope that we can solve those differences.”
Western diplomats welcomed his conciliatory tone. They said Najafi’s remarks were more matter of fact than those of his predecessor, Ali Asghar Soltanieh.
Iran says it is enriching uranium only for civilian energy and medicine, denying any aim to acquire nuclear weapons.
Rohani, who has vowed that Iran will be more transparent and less confrontational in talks both with the IAEA and the big powers, said this week that time for resolving Iran’s nuclear dispute with the West was limited.
He said he would meet foreign ministers of some of the six powers - Russia, China, France, Britain, the United States and Germany - when he attends the UN General Assembly in New York this month.
A senior adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was expected to meet Rohani on Friday, told reporters Moscow hopes that new talks between Iran and the six powers will be held very soon and that both sides need to be flexible.
“It is important that Iran display the necessary flexibility and readiness to meet the international community’s demands,” Yuri Ushakov said. “The six nations, in turn, should also demonstrate a creative approach and be ready to respond adequately to the positive steps that we expect from Iran.”
AM/PA
  Socialize this Subscribe to our RSS feed to stay in touch and receive all of TT updates right in your feed reader
|