Iran slams West for declining invitation

A top Iranian official has criticized the West for not attending Tehran’s nuclear tour and accusing the country’s nuclear program of lacking transparency.

“This is one of their contradictions. Every step we take instead of encouraging us, the other party tries to denigrate our positive step,” Iran’s caretaker Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in a Saturday press conference in the Iranian city of Arak.

Salehi added that Iran invited different countries to visit its nuclear facilities, something no other country in the world would allow, Mehr News Agency reported.

The Iranian official said Tehran is ready to offer its nuclear findings to other countries within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Salehi added that refusal to accept Iran’s invitation only denigrated the West.

As a goodwill gesture aimed at displaying the transparency of its nuclear program in the spirit of international cooperation, Iran invited diplomats representing political and geographical groups in the IAEA to tour the country’s nuclear facility.

Representatives from the IAEA, the Non-aligned Movement (NAM), Group of 77 and the Arab League arrived in Tehran on Saturday for a two-day tour of the country’s nuclear sites.

EU member states, however, refused Tehran’s invitation.

The delegates, who represent more than 120 countries visited Arak’s heavy water reactor on Saturday, and have begun their tour of Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility.

In answer to a question about Iran’s upcoming talks with the P5+1 — Britain, China, France, Russia and the US plus Germany — Salehi said, “The passage of time works in our favor and to their loss.”

The next round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 will be held in the Turkish city of Istanbul on January 21 and 22. The Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has said that the upcoming talks will revolve around key international problems.

The representatives of Iran and the P5+1 held their previous round of multifaceted talks in Geneva on December 6 and 7.

The US and its allies accuse Iran of developing a military nuclear program, and used this pretext to pressure the UN Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Iran’s financial and military sectors in June.

Iranian officials have repeatedly refuted the charges, arguing that as a signatory to the NPT and a member of the IAEA, Tehran has a right to use peaceful nuclear technology.