Tehran Accuses US Of Nuclear Double Standard
- From: "tony" <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 22:05:23 +0800
Tehran Accuses US Of Nuclear Double Standard
By Simon Tisdall
The Telegraph - UK
7-27-5
Iran accused the Bush administration yesterday of operating a double
standard and undermining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by agreeing to
aid India's civil nuclear programme, while insisting that Tehran abandon its
nuclear ambitions or face international sanctions.
The Iranian accusation will raise the temperature as the EU3 -
Britain, France and Germany - prepare to unveil a "final" draft proposal on
curbing Iran's nuclear programme early next month. The US and Israel suspect
Iran is only months away from acquiring nuclear weapons capability, a charge
Tehran flatly denies.
The EU3 plan is expected to offer limited economic incentives and
energy generation assistance if Iran forgoes uranium enrichment, which is
associated with the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
But Iranian resistance to the proffered deal may have been
reinforced by President George Bush's unexpected decision last week to
acknowledge India's status as a nuclear weapons state and offer "full civil
nuclear energy cooperation and trade", despite the fact that India, unlike
Iran, has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
"India is looking after its own national interests. We cannot
criticise them for this," a senior Iranian official said. "But what the
Americans are doing is a double standard.
"On the one hand, they are depriving an NPT member from having
peaceful technology, but at the same time they are cooperating with India,
which is not a member of the NPT, to their own advantage."
The US policy shift has been attributed to Washington's wish to
develop a strategic security relationship with India.
The Clinton administration imposed sanctions on Delhi after its 1998
nuclear bomb tests. The tests confirmed India as a nuclear power and led
Pakistan to follow suit.
But the move, yet to be approved by the US Congress or agreed with
the 40-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, has been criticised by administration
opponents for circumventing the NPT. Nigel Chamberlain of the independent
British American Security Information Council said the Iranian accusation
appeared justified, given that Tehran had apparently complied so far with
NPT and International Atomic Energy Agency inspection requirements.
"The Iranians do feel they are being singled out unfairly. It is
very difficult to say that there are legal grounds to tell them to stop
doing what they are doing. And India now seems to have benefited by standing
outside the treaty," Mr Chamberlain said.
He said Washington's move was potentially fatal for an NPT regime
already severely weakened by the failure of last May's treaty review
conference, scene of what he called "a running battle" between Iran and the
US, as well as disputes over the failure of acknowledged nuclear weapons
states, such as the US and Britain, to relinquish their arms.
The unveiling of the EU3 plan could coincide with the inauguration
on August 6 of Iran's conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Observers have suggested he may take a tougher line than his predecessor,
Mohammad Khatami.
But the senior Iranian official said that while "methods and
tactics" might alter when the new government took office, Tehran's basic
insistence on its legal right to develop its nuclear industry would not
change.
"People are getting impatient," the official said. "We have said
repeatedly that we are ready to give guarantees to the EU3 and IAEA that we
are not diverting from our peaceful nuclear activity."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1537607,00.html
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