Brussels, 02/06/2010 (Agence Europe) - The Iranian minister for foreign affairs, Manoucher Mottaki, gave a warning to the international community on Wednesday that the adoption of new sanctions against his country in the nuclear dossier could lead to “confrontation” and “kill” the agreement concluded in Tehran on 17 May, between Brazil and Turkey, on the exchange of fuel. The Iranian foreign minister informed the press in Brussels that “there are only two options (to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem): cooperation, based on the Tehran agreement on fuel exchange, or confrontation. The adoption of the Security Council's resolution (which includes further sanctions against Tehran) would lead to confrontation”. Nonetheless, the minister considers that the draft resolution on new sanctions, which is, however, supported by the five permanent members of the Security Council (including China and Russia), has “no chance” of getting through. He has even affirmed that his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, with whom he recently met, supports the Tehran agreement on fuel trading. Mottaki has defended Iran's right to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes and has indicated that his country wanted to increase its civilian nuclear energy. He declared that “we need 10 to 15 additional nuclear plants to produce electricity”. The Iranian minister also said that he was ready to meet the EU high representative for foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, to discuss the nuclear dossier. Mottaki affirmed that “we have already suggested two dates, which have not been accepted, so the condition is that we put forward another date. They have not yet given any date”. According to the latter, the EU has “significant capacities” in the foreign policy field, “but unfortunately, it has not been using them over recent years” either in the Middle East or in other crisis regions in the world. The Iranian minister explained that this was because “European leaders had placed all their eggs in the basket of George W. Bush and the European Union had always followed the US … the EU must change its approach and its foreign policy”.
The minister also rejected claims by Commander-in-Chief of the US Army and NATO forces in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal that Iran was supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. “The only objective of these untrue statements is to cover American failures in the last eight years in Afghanistan,” he said. Iran, he went on, “is still part of the solution” to the various problems that exist “whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or the Middle East”. (H.B./transl.rh/rt)