Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said on Thursday his country would continue to cooperate with the UN atomic watchdog as pressure mounted on the Islamic Republic to come clean about its nuclear ambitions.
The International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) has warned Iran it has until Oct. 31 to dispel suspicions it is secretly building a nuclear weapons capability or it could be reported to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
"Tehran will continue its cooperation with the agency although the IAEA issued an inappropriate resolution because Iran doesn't have any worries regarding the transparency of its peaceful nuclear program," the ISNA student news agency quoted Khatami as saying.
IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei urged Iran this week to give full cooperation to his team, which began talks in Tehran on Thursday to try to get to the bottom of the nuclear program.
But Iran, angered by the warnings in the IAEA resolution, had said it would only give inspectors limited access to nuclear sites.
It was not clear if Khatami's comments meant a change in that policy. Iran has refused to halt uranium enrichment -- another IAEA demand.
Iran says its nuclear scientists are merely trying to generate electricity from atomic energy, not build nuclear bombs as suspected by the US. Khatami insisted every country had the right to peaceful nuclear energy.
"Nuclear weapons will not be a source of security for us," state radio quoted him as saying. "To establish security, we pursue solidarity, good understanding, non-intervention in the affairs of one another and reliance on our nation."
Iranian officials have said they are seriously considering signing the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That would give IAEA inspectors almost unfettered access to nuclear sites with little prior notice.
But the US, the EU and the IAEA have said signing the Additional Protocol, while a positive step, would not be enough to ease concerns about Iran's aims.
The EU called on Iran this week to stop any activity that could produce material able to be used in nuclear weapons.
That would mean halting a uranium enrichment program started in 1985 which Iran says will produce fuel for reactors.
Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for power plants, or as bomb material if highly enriched.
Top Iranian officials, including members of both the elected reformist government and conservative figures who control the armed forces and other powerful state bodies, met late on Tuesday to discuss Iran's response to the international pressure, the moderate Entekhab newspaper reported.
The meeting was held to sum up the attitudes of relevant organizations to the IAEA resolution which set the Oct. 31 deadline, the paper said.
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