Bush blames Tehran
2005-03-04 10:08
Washington - US President George W Bush on Thursday again stated his willingness to assist European countries in their negotiations with Iran, and blamed Tehran for a lack of cooperation.
"I have told our European friends who are handling the negotiations on behalf of the rest of the world that we want to help make sure the process goes forward, and we're looking at ways to help move the process forward," Bush said, noting talks he had during last week's trip to Europe.
Britain, France and Germany have been negotiating since December to convince Iran to give objective guarantees that its atomic energy programme is purely for peaceful purposes, offering in exchange nuclear, trade and technological cooperation.
International Atomic Energy Agency deputy director Pierre Goldschmidt said on Tuesday that Iran was pressing ahead with work on a 40-megawatt reactor at Arak, southwest of Tehran, but he gave no details on how far the work had progressed.
The IAEA called on Iran on Thursday to do more to cooperate with UN inspectors and backed a European Union effort to give Tehran trade and security benefits in exchange for abandoning nuclear fuel cycle work.
That call came as Bush in Washington again stressed that Iran should not be allowed to develop potential nuclear weapons.
"I am most appreciative that our friends in Europe agree with the United States that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon," he said, underlining his view on Iran and nuclear weapons with the words, "Period. No ifs, ands or buts."
"And, by the way, Mr (Russian President Vladimir) Putin feels the same way. And to me that is a very positive start for achieving our common objective," Bush added.
"The guilty party is Iran. They're the ones who are not living up to international accords. They're the people that the whole world is saying: 'Don't develop a weapon.'
Meanwhile, in Tehran, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the United States and Europe, by seeking to bar the country from enriching uranium, want to prevent it from developing.
"The United States and Europe, despite their differences, are united in pressuring Iran to renounce the enrichment of uranium because enrichment is a road toward scientific progress, and if a people travel that road the oppressors will have less effect on them," he told a group of students.
"The reason the United States and Europe are hostile to Iran progressing in the field of nuclear technology is because they do not want the Iranian people to progress," he said, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.