Iran rejects watchdog criticism of nuclear programme

Iran today rejected criticism from the UN’s atomic watchdog that it has been delaying a probe into suspect nuclear activities.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is fine-tuning a resolution that will reprimand Iran but refrain from direct threats of sanctions.

“We have no plans to produce weapons and all of our activities are for peaceful purposes and nothing is wrong,” Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said.

“We are quite transparent and have decided to cooperate fully with IAEA and the international community,” he said.

At a meeting of the IAEA’s 35 nation board of governors in Vienna yesterday, agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei reflected the general frustrations with Iran saying his agency’s probe ”can’t go on forever”.

The agency is mainly concerned with ambiguous, missing or withheld information on the scope of Iran’s enrichment programme, and the source of enriched uranium found inside the country.