AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
TEHRAN: Iran complained to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan Monday over what it perceives as the threat of a United States attack, as the regime continued to defy demands to halt its disputed nuclear drive.
In a letter forwarded to the United Nations chief by Iran's ambassador in New York, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the regime condemned “American officials for their illegitimate and open threats to use force against the Islamic republic of Iran”.
“These are in obvious contravention of international rules and the principles of the United Nations,” the letter was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.
It said that “these rude threats have recently been publicised through some reports in US newspapers”, and noted a report in The New Yorker magazine last month which said US military planners had even looked into using nuclear 'bunker-busters' to strike Iran's atomic facilities.
“These (threats) have entered a new stage, with the refusal of US officials to deny these reports,” the letter said, calling for “serious attention” as well as “quick and firm action” from the world body.
The complaint came as diplomats from the five permanent Council members and Germany were to meet in Paris Tuesday and again at the foreign ministers level in New York on May 9, following up on an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report confirming Iran has not complied with demands to freeze uranium enrichment.
The United States and Europe are hoping a reluctant Russia and China will agree to a robust resolution that legally obliges Iran to halt the sensitive work — which makes reactor fuel but can also be extended to make the core of an atom bomb.
But even if they succeed in reaching a consensus, Iran looked unlikely to back down.
“The struggle of the Iranian people against the United States is like the struggle between Moses and the pharoah,” commented Mohsen Rezai, the right-wing secretary of the country's top political arbitration body, the Expediency Council.
“For the Americans, it is not a nuclear issue but one of Iran progressing to become developed and powerful,” he told the ISNA news agency, repeating the regime's view that the crisis is merely an extension of US ambitions to see the ouster of Iran's ruling clerics.
Iran's top national security official Ali Larijani also argued that there was “no sense” in the country returning to a suspension of enrichment.
“A suspension does not make any sense to us, because we do not think an atomic bomb can come out of a 164 centrifuge cascade,” he was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
Iran has installed 164 centrifuges at a pilot plant in Natanz, situated in the desert south of Tehran.
Iran argues it is so far only carrying out small-scale “research” work, and that it only wants to eventually make civilian reactor fuel. On Friday a UN Security Council deadline for the work to stop expired without Iranian compliance.
What Tehran wants is to continue enrichment and keep the case out of the Security Council, which unlike the IAEA has enforcement powers. Iran argues it only wants to generate electricity and that fuel cycle work is therefore a right enshrined by the NPT.
Iran has been seeking to split Council members by balancing threats of tough reprisals — such as ending IAEA inspections — if the pressure mounts and some concessions if it eases.
Russia and China are for the time being opposed to any sanctions, or a resolution invoking the UN Charter's Chapter 7 — a reference which would open the door to political and economic sanctions and even, as a last resort, military action.
US President George W. Bush on Monday telephoned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss ways to block Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
McClellan said the two leaders “committed to remaining in close contact on this important priority”.
They also “reiterated their desire to conclude the US-Russia bilateral negotiations on Russia's accession to the WTO (World Trade Organization) soon,” the spokesman said.
