A top Iranian nuclear official said Tehran is pressing for the UN nuclear watchdog to ban military strikes against atomic facilities around the world, state television reported on Tuesday. But Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, denied saying Tehran was ready to hold talks with the West on its atomic drive "without preconditions," the television reported.
"No comments or interview with TV networks has been made on nuclear talks or conditions," it quoted him as saying. The television had earlier quoted Soltanieh as saying: "Negotiations without preconditions is Iran's main stance on the nuclear issue."
Instead, Soltanieh said he had referred to a letter he sent to the IAEA calling for the UN watchdog's meeting in September to approve an Iranian initiative to prohibit armed attacks on nuclear facilities across the globe. "The only issue that was raised was to ban threats and attacks on the world's nuclear installations, because it is an international issue," he said, the television reported.
US President Barack Obama has given Iran until September to take up an offer by world powers of talks if it freezes uranium enrichment, or face harsher sanctions. The West and Israel suspect Iran of secretly trying to build nuclear weapons, charges denied by Opec's number two oil exporter which inists its atomic programme is for energy generation. The Unted States and its staunchest ally Israel have not ruled out military action to stop its nuclear programme.
But six major powers involved in the talks - the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany - called in April for a resumption of the negotiations, which had stalled in September. But prospects of a breakthrough have been clouded by the deep political turmoil in Iran over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in June which have seen relations with the West take a turn for the worse.
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