Iran has sent a formal protest note to Washington for "spying" on its nuclear activities, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in the wake of the latest US report on the alleged Iranian weapons program.
Mottaki said on Saturday that the US report earlier this week, concluding that Tehran halted atomic weapons development in 2003 and has not resumed it since, indicated US intelligence agencies based their findings on "satellite and espionage activities," the official IRNA news agency said.
IRNA said the note was handed over to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which looks after US interests in the absence of diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington.
"The day the report was issued, the Foreign Ministry submitted a formal note of protest to the Swiss Embassy and demanded explanations over [the US'] espionage activities taking place [on Iran's nuclear program]," Mottaki was quoted as saying.
The US report, released last Monday, was a sharp turnaround from a previous intelligence assessment in 2005.
Iran has touted the report as a vindication of its claim that its nuclear program is only peaceful. Iranian officials insist Washington should take a less hawkish stance and drop attempts to impose new UN sanctions in light of the report's conclusions.
Mottaki said 70 percent of the US report was "true and positive," but denied its allegations of Iran having had a nuclear weapons program before 2003.
"The remaining 30 percent, in which they claim that Iran had a nuclear weapons program before 2003 is wrong," Mottaki said. "They refused to confess about this 30 percent because they did not want to lose all their reputation."
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, called the report a "sigh of relief" because its conclusions also jibe with his agency's own findings.
Russia, a power Iran looks to for assistance and a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, said on Wednesday there was no proof Iran has ever run a nuclear weapons program.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated the US' acknowledgment that Iran halted a suspect nuclear weapons bid in 2003 undermine Washington's push for a new set of UN sanctions.
The US and some of its allies accuse Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons -- a claim denied by Iran, which says its program aims only to generate electricity.
Iran has already been slapped with two rounds UN Security Council sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
Political directors from the six key countries dealing with Iran's nuclear program -- the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany -- are scheduled to talk by phone today or tomorrow about a new sanctions resolution, Security Council diplomats said.
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