TEHRAN/VIENNA – Iran invited Russia, China, the European Union and others yesterday to visit key nuclear plants, but left out Britain, France, Germany and the United States – the countries most opposed to its nuclear programme.
Iran’s surprise invitation to several ambassadors accredited to the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna appeared to be a bid to show openness about its disputed atomic activities, which the West suspects are aimed at making nuclear bombs.
Iran says its uranium programme is for entirely peaceful ends.
None of the four major western powers involved in diplomatic efforts to resolve the long-running dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme – the US, Britain, Germany and France – have received invitations from Tehran.
But Hungary, the current EU president, said it had received an invitation letter from Iran. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has represented the bloc in negotiations so far, not the EU presidency holders.
“We are still trying to determine who is on Iran’s invite list. We aren’t,” US state department spokesman PJ Crowley said.
A US official who spoke on condition of anonymity said neither the US nor the EU3 – EU members Britain, France and Germany – have been invited.
“A fair number of invitations have been issued.
“The pattern is clearer regarding who is not invited – the US and E3 – than who is invited,” said the US official.
“Hungary, invited as the EU presidency, has already declined,” the official added.
There was no immediate confirmation from either Hungary or the EU of this.
A senior western diplomat dismissed the planned trip as an Iranian stunt seeking to distract attention from its obligations under repeated UN Security Council resolutions calling on Tehran to suspend activity that the West fears has military aims.
Iran’s foreign ministry said that the ambassadors were invited to travel to the country before Tehran and six world powers are due to meet in Istanbul at the end of January.
An Iranian nuclear scientist who claimed to have been abducted by the CIA and who returned to a hero’s welcome in Tehran in July has been imprisoned and tortured on suspicion of giving away state secrets, according to an opposition website.
Iranbriefing.net – run by a US-based group that normally reports on political prisoners and the activities of Iran’s revolutionary guard – said the scientist, Shahram Amiri, had been interrogated intensively for three months in Tehran. He then spent two months in solitary confinement, where his treatment left him hospitalised for a week.
The Tehran authorities would not confirm or deny the account.
Mr Amiri has not been seen in public in the six months since his much-publicised homecoming from America, where he claimed to have been held against his will. – (Reuters/ Guardianservice)