Iran accuses US over nuclear 'double standards'

Published on Saturday 2 August 2008 19:51

IRAN yesterday accused the United States of double standards over its nuclear deal with India, as an informal deadline was passed for an offer by Western powers to freeze sanctions if Tehran halted its atomic ambitions.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad arrived in Tehran, a few weeks after he said he would respond to French president Nicolas Sarkozy's request and use his good ties with Iran to help resolve its nuclear stand-off with the West. He was expected to meet Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior officials during a two-day stay.

Western powers gave Iran two weeks from July 19 to respond to their offer to hold off from imposing more UN sanctions on the country if it would freeze any expansion of its nuclear work.

That suggested a deadline of yesterday but Iran dismissed the idea of having two weeks to reply. European diplomats in Brussels said they were ready to wait a few more days. The West accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear warheads under cover of a civilian power programme. Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, denies the charge.

"We have not had any discussion (or) agreement of the so-called timeline of two weeks," Iran's representative to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said.

He criticised US policy after governors of the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, on Friday approved an inspections plan for India, an important step towards completing a nuclear trade accord between New Delhi and Washington.

Unlike India, Iran is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

"Iran expresses its grave concern regarding the double standards used by the United States," Soltanieh said.

He accused the United States of a discriminatory move and of violating the "spirit and letter" of the NPT, and said Iran faced restrictions and was being "deprived from access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes."

Friday's decision removes a barrier to an accord that would allow exports of nuclear fuel and technology to India for civilian use.

The United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany offered Iran economic and other incentives in June to coax it into halting uranium enrichment, which can have both civilian and military uses.

The freeze idea was aimed at getting preliminary talks started, though formal negotiations on the incentives package will not start before Iran stops enriching uranium.