Iran seemed to be fed up with the one-sided UN nuclear watchdog reports
Iran seemed to be fed up with the one-sided UN nuclear watchdog reports that turns a blind eye to years of cooperation and concessions Tehran made for the sake of gaining credibility in its peaceful nuclear program.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has said he sees no more room for compromise in the battle over Iran's nuclear program, in an interview with German news weekly Der Spiegel published Sunday.
"I think there's no more point in making additional concessions," he said. "The nuclear question is just a pretext to weaken us by all means," he added.
Salehi rejected an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report released Tuesday citing "credible" evidence that Iran had worked towards nuclear weapons, saying the Vienna-based agency had given up its "earlier objectivity".
He said IAEA head Yukiya Amano was headed for hard times. "We will call him and the atomic energy authority to account for these conclusions," he warned.
Iran’s parliament speaker Ali Larijani also warned that Tehran must review its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog due to the hostile nature of the IAEA report.
Larijani said the tone of the report amounted to "hostility and a copy of orders" issued by arch-foes Israel and the US.
"The parliament deems necessary to review (Iran's) cooperation with the agency, because it showed with its new approach that cooperation and non-cooperation makes no difference in its decision -- which are unprofessional anyway," he said in remarks made to lawmakers.
Iranian officials characterized the IAEA report as "baseless" and hewing to intelligence provided by Israel and the United States.