Brussels, 07/09/2004 (Agence Europe) - Passing on the concerns expressed by EU Foreign Affairs Ministers last weekend in Maastricht (see EUROPE of 7 September, p.6), the Netherlands, which currently holds the EU Council Presidency, published a press release on Monday evening on behalf of the Union in which it calls on Iran to intensify its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The approach comes within the framework of the visit by Hassan Rohani, Iranian Secretary to the National Security Council, to The Hague on 6 September, where he met Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and his Foreign Minister, Bernard Bot. According to the press release, "Minister Bot told Rohani that the intensification of Iran's cooperation with the IAEA about Iran's nuclear programme is needed to regain the trust of the international community". We recall that the United States suspects Teheran of seeking to avail itself of atomic weapons. This is denied by Iran, which maintains that its nuclear programme is for purely pacific purposes. Washington trusts, moreover, that the dossier will be transmitted to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions, an option that Europeans do not rule out.
In an interview on Iranian television, Mr Rohani said: "We clearly told the European Union that Iran will not give up its indisputable right (to master civil nuclear technology) but that it does not seek to manufacture the atomic bomb". "We stressed that the solution of the Iranian nuclear issue is not to be found in pressure and threats but in dialogue", he added. "We spoke of ten different issues that make up a strategic package for cooperation between Iran and the EU. The nuclear issue was one of the main topics", the person in charge of Iran's nuclear programme specified. He recalled that his country "has signed and is applying the additional protocol" to the non-proliferation Treaty to "stress the pacific nature of our nuclear activities". Iran decided end 2003 to sign and apply the additional protocol that provides for unannounced inspections at its nuclear sites. According to some observers, Mr Rohani had travelled to The Hague to express Iran's wish to dialogue with the EU on the nuclear issue in an attempt to counter the American approach aimed at taking Teheran before the Security Council.