Iran seeks sanctions end at talks, hits out at France

Iran said Wednesday it would seek an end to sanctions over its nuclear activities at talks with big powers later this month and it sought to turn the tables on its Western foes by accusing France of helping Israel develop “inhumane nuclear weapons”. An adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the negotiations in Baghdad on May 23 should lead to the lifting of punitive measures on Tehran, Iranian media reported. The comments reflect a hardening public line in the Islamic Republic that an end to sanctions is vital to the success of the talks. It was also the first time an influential political figure explicitly said he expects progress on the issue. “At the least, our expectation is the lifting of sanctions,” Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel was quoted by Iranian media as saying. However, the US and its allies have made clear Tehran must take action to allay their concerns about its nuclear ambitions before they can consider relaxing sanctions. They say Iran’s nuclear programme is a cover for developing atomic bombs and want verifiable assurances to the contrary from Tehran - for example, by accepting much more intrusive UN nuclear inspections and curbing its enrichment capacity. Iran denies having a weapons agenda, saying it is enriching uranium solely for peaceful energy purposes. Western states have imposed expanded, more biting sanctions against Iran’s energy and banking sectors since the beginning of this year. The European Union is preparing to slap a total embargo on the purchase of Iranian crude oil in July. In Vienna, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohamed Mahdi Akhondzadeh said nuclear weapons have no place in Iran’s defence doctrine, and accused “certain” states of double standards and hypocrisy, in a clear reference to Tehran’s Western critics. He took aim at France, a pivotal player in tightening sanctions on Iran, accusing it of having assisted Israel in developing nuclear weapons decades ago. The Jewish state is widely reputed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal. France, a big exporter of civilian nuclear technology, built in the 1950s an Israeli reactor in the southern desert town of Dimona, a complex widely believed to have produced atomic bombs. “While certain countries such as France express concerns over peaceful nuclear activities of Iran ... they have spared4 no effort in helping Israel ... to develop inhumane nuclear weapons,” Akhondzadeh said. “Indeed, France is the founder of Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons programme,” he told a meeting convened to discuss the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a voluntary 1970 pact. Israel, which is outside the NPT, neither confirms nor denies it has nuclear weapons. “The existence of nuclear weapons in the hands of ... Israel continues to pose the gravest threat to the stability and security” in the Middle East, Akhondzadeh said. The US and Israel regard Iran’s nuclear ambitions as the main threat to peace in the volatile region, prompting persistent speculation they might attack its atomic sites if diplomacy fails to resolve the long-running dispute. France’s representative at the two-week NPT meeting in Vienna said on Monday Iran, one of the world’s leading oil exporters, for “far too many years” had pursued an enrichment programme without “any credible civil purpose”. Ambassador Elissa Golberg of Canada, a staunch ally of Israel, told delegates yesterday that Iranian activities could “only be understood in the context of a nuclear weapons development effort”. Akhondzadeh said the existence of nearly 23,000 nuclear warheads in the world and their continued modernisation was the “most serious threat to the survival of mankind” and the nuclear weapons states should agree a date to eliminate them. The five recognised nuclear weapons states are the US, Russia, China, France and Britain - the same powers which together with Germany are putting pressure on Tehran to scale back its uranium enrichment programme.