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Iran warns of consequences if UN adopts sanctions
Category: News and Politics
This article found online at : http://www.arabtimesonline.com/client/pagesdetails.asp?nid=1 1538&ccid=11
..> ..> Iran warns of consequences if UN adopts sanctions
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP): Iran warned on Monday of "serious consequences" if the UN Security Council adopts fresh sanctions against Tehran over its refusal to halt sensitive nuclear work. "If a resolution is passed... it will have serious and logical consequences and we will announce them later," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki Mottaki told a press conference. His comments came as the Security Council was due on Monday to discuss a proposed third set of sanctions over Iran's long-standing refusal to halt uranium enrichment. The sanctions package was agreed last week by foreign ministers of the council's five veto-wielding permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany.
Iran is already under two sets of UN sanctions for its refusal to halt enrichment, the process which makes nuclear fuel but can be extended to make the fissile core of an atom bomb.
But Tehran, Opec's number two oil exporter, insists it has a right to enrichment to make fuel to meet increasing energy needs of its population and denies charges its nuclear programme has military aims.
And Mottaki said a new resolution "will not affect Iran's determination to pursue its rights in using nuclear energy."
Mottaki said the 15-member Security Council should wait for a March meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors before taking a decision.
"The IAEA final report will confirm that there has not been any deviation" in Iran's nuclear programme towards weapons development, he said.
"If the IAEA reports that Iran has not deviated in past, the Security Council should be brave enough to make amends and cancel the two resolutions, and allow the IAEA to supervise our work like all member states," he said.
Despite a four-year probe into Tehran's atomic drive, the UN nuclear watchdog has so far been unable to certify whether the programme is peaceful.
Meanwhile, Russia completed delivering fuel for Iran's first nuclear power plant in the Gulf port of Bushehr on Monday with the arrival of an eighth consignment.
"The final delivery has been completed.... It was 8.6 tonnes of uranium," the Russian contractor Atomstroiexport's spokeswoman Irina Yesipova told AFP.
Asked if the plant would go on line this year, she said: "Ideally, yes. If all the conditions are met, then it will."
Late last month, Mottaki said the Bushehr reactor would be working at 50 percent capacity by mid-2008.
After delivering the first shipment of fuel in December, Russia said Iran no longer needed to pursue its own uranium enrichment, a message repeated by US President George W. Bush.
In another development, Iran has summoned the Norwegian ambassador to Tehran to protest at what it said was Oslo's interference in human rights issues, state television reported on Monday.
"The summons was made because of meddling and selective approaches of Norway," the broadcaster's website quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying.
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Posted by ELIA on 2008-02-02 23:27:17 | Rating: | Views: 61
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