Tehran, Sep 15 (DPA) Iran has settled all its nuclear issues with the UN nuclear watchdog, so there was no need to review the issues in talks with world powers, a senior Iranian nuclear official said Tuesday.
Deputy chief nuclear negotiator Ali Baqeri said that there had been some remaining issues which Iran has settled with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and hence removed all IAEA concerns and reaffirmed the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear projects.
“As far as the Iranian nuclear case is concerned, there are neither remaining technical nor legal questions left,” Baqeri was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
“Therefore there is no room for the nuclear issue in the agenda (of talks with the world powers),” he added.
In its latest report, the IAEA detailed how it has been unsuccessfully seeking explanations about several past studies, including one in which Iran seems to have worked on modifying a missile to carry a nuclear warhead.
At a meeting last week, outgoing IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said there was a “high probability” that Iran worked to develop nuclear weapons in the past, if intelligence information in that regard is genuine.
Following a 14-month break, talks between Iran and the nuclear negotiators – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States – are to resume their talks Oct 1, probably in Turkey.
Baqeri said that as a regional and international power, Iran wanted to talk about global issues such as terrorism, peace, the environment, the economic crisis and security.
“We are serious and ready for cooperation with world powers in these fields and consider our proposals as logical and definitely acceptable for those countries which want to settle the global problems rationally,” Baqeri added.
However, the so-called 5+1 group wants to focus on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme in general and the uranium enrichment process in particular.
The agreement for resuming negotiations is therefore considered by observers as no major breakthrough but the first opportunity for both sides to once again clarify their stances.