Official Says West Efforts against Iran’s Sovereignty Not Acceptable

Hassan Ghafouri-Fard told the Mehr News Agency that articles 4 and 5 of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stipulate that the agency’s regulations must not undermine the sovereignty of signatory states.

However, Ghafouri-Fard added, the NPT additional protocol, which the IAEA is urging Iran to sign, contradicts those articles.

“Therefore, it is natural that we are against this protocol,” he said.   

The Islamic Republic is already a signatory to (NPT). However, the IAEA is refusing to provide Iran with the nuclear expertise that under the agency's regulations it is entitled to receive.

Iran says it needs to receive guarantees before signing the additional protocol that the sanctions imposed by the West are removed and that nuclear powers help the Islamic Republic attain nuclear technology to satisfy its energy needs.

Ghafouri-Fard said Iran, as a country trying to move strongly in the international arena, needs to develop the nuclear technology, stressing that the U.S. and its allies have over the past 25 years tried to undermine Iran’s efforts to that effect. 

He recalled the last month resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) calling on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, expressing surprise that the agency had decided to deprive Iran of a branch of science.

The IAEA Board of Governors last month set an October 31 deadline for Iran to prove it is pursuing peaceful nuclear programs.

The resolution submitted by Canada, Japan and Australia also calls on Tehran to clarify its nuclear program by the end of October and to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ghafouri-Fard said once Iran’s unfinished Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant comes on stream, it will satisfy only five percent of the energy needs of the planned target.

The presidential advisor also stressed that Iran has always been advocating peace, adding that Iran’s foreign policy apparatus must present Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program to the world.

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MNA