Iran's foreign ministry Monday appealed to Washington to stop using "threatening language", warning that US posturing would only undermine the cause of dialogue and strengthen the hand of hardliners in the Islamic republic.
"We have seen some confusion over Iran within the American leadership, and we hope they will see sense and not use the language of force, because this will have the opposite effect," spokesman Hami-Reza Asefi told reporters, according to AFP.
"Certain people (in Iran) think that dialogue is a waste of time, and if the pressure becomes too strong, it will strengthen the hand of those against dialogue," he added.
On another issue, Asefi said that Iran felt no need to
report certain parts of its nuclear activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from the legal point of view. According to him, this constituted the main "failure" that IAEA says in its recent report that Iran has perpetrated.
"According to our understanding of Article 38 of the agency's Safeguards Agreement, we never felt obliged to report to the IAEA, and we are not still convinced that we should have reported to the agency because their explanations were not convincing," Asefi said.
The IAEA on Friday announced that Iran was not honoring its nuclear safeguards agreement. Iran, however, rejected this, stressing instead that the report manifested cooperation and transparency. According to IRNA, Asefi said Iran had informed IAEA about importing uranium for peaceful purposes 12 years ago, adding that this showed Tehran's good-will toward the agency.
"Still, no significant issue was raised to the effect at the time," he said. (Albawaba.com)
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