Iran will not attend a rare meeting for Middle East countries next week to discuss efforts to free the world of nuclear weapons, an Iranian official said, signalling worsening ties between the UN atomic agency and Iran. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, made the announcement after the 35-nation governing board of the IAEA adopted a resolution on Friday rebuking Tehran over its nuclear programme.
Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons. Soltanieh lashed out at IAEA chief Yukiya Amano, who convened the November 21-22 talks in Vienna for countries in the Middle East and other agency members, as "not professional" and said he did not believe the meeting would be successful. Amano issued a report last week which angered Iran by saying the Islamic state appeared to have worked on designing a nuclear weapon and that secret research may continue.
Soltanieh said Amano had "not even talked about Israeli nuclear capabilities," referring to the Jewish state's assumed atomic arsenal. "How can we positively respond to the invitation of Mr Amano?," he told reporters. "While we are a strong proponent of a nuclear weapons-free zone we don't think that the meeting ... will be fruitful and successful. Therefore I must say we will not participate."
Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, and faces frequent Arab and Iranian condemnation. Israel and the United States regard Iran as the region's main nuclear threat, accusing Tehran of trying to develop an atomic bomb in secret. Last week's IAEA document added weight to those allegations, but Iran dismissed it as fabricated.
FINLAND TO HOST 2012 MEETING Israel and Arab states are expected to attend next week's forum at IAEA headquarters, which is seen as a symbolically significant bid to bring regional foes together at the same venue, even though no concrete outcome is expected. If conducted smoothly with relatively toned-down rhetoric on all sides, it could send a positive signal ahead of a planned international conference next year on banning nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
But Iran's refusal to take part in the Vienna forum underlined the tough challenges that lie ahead for this vision and the deep divisions and mistrust that would need to be bridged. The discussions on Monday and Tuesday will focus on the experiences of regions which have set up Nuclear Weapons-Free Zones (NWFZ), including Africa and Latin America.