Parliament speaker: Iran must review cooperation with IAEA

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran must review its cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog due to the hostile nature of a report on the country's atomic program, parliament speaker Ali Larijani warned on Sunday, Nov 13.

In an explicit warning to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Larijani said the tone of the report amounted to “hostility and a copy of orders” issued by arch-foes Israel and the U.S.

“The parliament deems necessary to review (Iran's) cooperation with the agency, because it showed with its new approach that cooperation and non-cooperation makes no difference in its decision - which are unprofessional anyway,” he said in remarks made to lawmakers.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog released a report on Tuesday expressing serious concerns about “credible” evidence of Iran working towards the development of nuclear warheads to fit inside its medium-range missiles.

Iranian officials immediately characterized the report as “baseless” and hewing to intelligence provided by Israel and the United States.

Larijani's warning comes after Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Wednesday Tehran “will continue to comply with its commitments under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty” - which obliges Iran to cooperate.

The parliament, dominated by hardliners of the Islamic regime, traditionally takes a tougher stance than the government when it comes to major issues of sovereignty, such as Iran's nuclear issue or relations with the West.

It passed legislation in 2010 forbidding the government to abandon uranium enrichment -the most sensitive part of its nuclear program - as Tehran was negotiating with the major powers on an exchange of atomic fuel.

Subject to four sets of U.N. sanctions and several Western sanctions over its enrichment program, Iran has so far refused to freeze its uranium enrichment activities, Alarabiya reports.