Iran Dismisses "Fabricated" Nuke Evidence
Iran's ambassador to the United Nations said that an Iranian opposition group is feeding fabricated evidence to Washington that purports to show the Tehran government tried to produce nuclear weapons.
Ambassador Mohammad Khazee said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press that the U.S. is getting unreliable intelligence from the Mujahedeen Khalq, also known as the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which was allied with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. The U.S. and European Union list it as a terrorist group.
Khazee insisted Iran has resolved all outstanding issues about its nuclear program and said Tehran should not face any new U.N. sanctions. He warned that new sanctions would harm "the credibility" of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The U.N. Security Council, however, is expected to approve a third round of sanctions against Iran later this week for its defiance of a council demand that it suspend uranium enrichment until it has allayed suspicions about its nuclear program.
Khazee said at a news conference that if new sanctions are approved "it would not be logical to comply with the resolution."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice disputed the Iranian assessment of the IAEA report, saying it provided "very strong" grounds for the Security Council to move ahead quickly with new sanctions.
She cited Iran's continued enrichment work and its failure to respond credibly to U.S. allegations that Iran conducted research into high explosives and missile design in the 1990s that were linked to atomic weapons.
Khazee told reporters that when the IAEA raised the U.S. allegations and showed Iran some documents Feb. 15, his government knew the papers were fabricated because "they gave us some names that ... do not exist" and named some people who "have not been involved in the nuclear program of Iran."
The IAEA report noted Iran had rejected documents that link it to missile and explosives experiments and other work connected to a possible nuclear weapons program, calling the information false and irrelevant.
"I'm afraid to say that, according to my information, some of these allegations were produced or fabricated by a terrorist group - which are listed as a terrorist group in the United States and somewhere else in Europe," Khazee said in the AP interview.
He told AP later he was referring to the Mujahedeen Khalq, which was declared a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department in 1997. Last June, the European Union decided to retain the Paris-based opposition group on its terrorist list.
Last week, Mohammad Mohaddesin, a senior official of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of Iranian opposition groups that includes the Mujahedeen Khalq, charged that the Iranian regime is still working on atomic arms and has speeded up its weapons program.
Speaking in Brussels, Belgium, Mohaddesin said his group had given the IAEA evidence to support his charge.
Asked about Khazee's remarks Monday, Mohaddessin called the ambassador's allegation "absolutely false" and "nonsense."
"One could not expect anything else from a regime which is caught between a rock and a hard place," he said in a telephone interview with AP's office in Paris.
"We are sure 100 percent of what we revealed, that the Iranian regime is working to produce a nuclear warhead in Khojir," a facility on the southeast edge of Tehran, Mohaddesin said. "If the Iranian regime is sincere in this regard, why don't they say to inspectors we open the doors to these facilities?"
Khazee insisted Iran's nuclear program is purely peaceful and said his country is working with the IAEA to answer any questions other nations have.
"Iran has been cooperating with the IAEA more seriously and more sincerely and beyond its obligation, so somebody should ask the secretary of state where these questions come from," Khazee said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seen at left, said over the weekend that the IAEA report vindicated Iran and warned that Tehran would take unspecified "decisive reciprocal measures" against any country that imposed additional sanctions on Iran.
Asked what those measures might be, Khazee told AP: "Definitely, it's not the matter of military action by Iran to any country. But there are some other elements that give Iran (the) upper hand in the region - economically, politically - to defend its right."
As for U.S.-Iranian relations under a new U.S. president next year, he said, "The most important issue, I believe, is to have a real picture, an impression about the Islamic Republic of Iran's power as well as constructive role in the region."
"I believe whoever understand that, they will think about having a better attitude vis a vis the great Iranian nation, as well as the government and the Islamic Republic," Khazee said.
The problem now, he said, is that the U.S. and a few other countries "do not like to see a powerful Iran in the region."