Iran accuses US, EU of frustrating nuclear efforts

Iran today accused the US and Europe of trying to stop it from gaining nuclear technology expertise and vowed to frustrate all such efforts.

The defiance came as a transatlantic rift surfaced during a key meeting of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency over how firmly to deal with Iran and its suspect nuclear programme.

But a former president of Iran, which denies it is seeking nuclear weapons, has slammed both the United States and EU as working together to curb Tehran’s atomic programme.

“America and the Europeans follow the same objective: denying Iran mastery over nuclear technology,” Hashemi RafsanjanI said.

“The Americans say that impudently, while Europeans say it through diplomacy,” said Rafsanjani, who is the closest figure to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and heads the Expediency Council, a powerful arbitrating body within the ruling Islamic establishment.

Speaking to a group of clerics in the holy north-eastern city of Mashhad, Rafsanjani said American and Europe “say resolutely that we should not master nuclear technology and we say resolutely that we can’t give up the right of our country and nation” to develop nuclear technology.

The International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna has become the main battleground between Iran and the United States, which wants to take Tehran before the UN Security Council for alleged violations of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.