Publish Date: 18 June 2003 - 20:00

TEHRAN, June 18 (Mehr News Agency) – Washington tries to change the vote of the Board of Governors of International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) on Iran to its favor through pressuring them, Iran’s former UN ambassador Mohammad Rajaei Khorasani said Wednesday.

The IAEA is studying a report prepared by its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, that said: Iran has failed to meet its obligations under its (NPT) Safeguards Agreement.

 

The Iranian representative to the IAEA, Ali Salehi, told a high level meeting of the agency's 35-nation board of governors that the report "could have been crafted in a more partial, fair and balanced manner".

 

The "awkward directives issued at certain influential capitals on the form, the content and the final conclusion and judgment of the report," Salehi said, alluding to the United States that pressured the IAEA to report Iran’s violation of the IAEA agreements.

 

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States wanted the IAEA board "to express their concerns about the nuclear program."

 

“There is no doubt that the U.S. administration has made an effort to influence the members of the Board of Governors in preparing their reports,” Rajaei Khorasani told the Mehr News Agency in an interview.

 

“Even prior to the visit of IAEA chief to Iran last February, U.S. experts where busy planning their pressuring policy.”

 

Rajaei Khorasani reiterated Tehran’s policy of using nuclear energy saying it is both transparent and peaceful.

 

“We are one of the main engineers of the plan on a nuclear-free Middle East region,” he said criticizing Israel’s refusal to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and Washington’s pro-Israeli policies.

 

ST/SM

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MNA