President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United Nations on Wednesday of complicity in the murder of a nuclear scientist, days before talks aimed at defusing a nuclear stand-off. Scientist Majid Shahriyari, killed in a bomb attack on his car, was buried on in a funeral attended by Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who will meet the European Union's foreign affairs chief on December 6-7 for talks.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, nor another similar attack on the same day, which Tehran has blamed on countries seeking to stop the nuclear programme they fear is aimed at making a bomb. "Committing terrorist acts shows well that you do not have the intention to negotiate, but you want to show hostility towards the Iranian nation," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the semi-official ILNA news agency. "In these kinds of terrorist acts, undoubtedly the United Nations is in cahoots with Zionists."
A separate car bomb at around the same time on Monday as the one that killed Shahriyari, wounded another nuclear scientist, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, who is personally subject to UN sanctions because of what Western officials said is his involvement in suspected nuclear weapons research. Iran says its nuclear programme is purely peaceful. "We consider those who have issued resolution against us accountable, because in the resolution they mentioned the names of scientists, and this move is like pointing out (the victims) to the Zionist murderers," Ahmadinejad said.
Another nuclear scientist, Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb in Tehran in January and Iran's nuclear installations have also been hit by a computer virus. The United States and Israel say they do not rule out a pre-emptive military strike on Iran to stop it getting nuclear weapons if diplomacy fails. Talking to reporters at the funeral, the nuclear negotiator Jalili said: "It is a big scandal for UN Security Council that the terrorists carry out their sanctions."
Jalili will hold talks in Geneva on December 6 and 7 with EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton who represents the "P5+1", the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. The six powers are hoping the discussions will focus on Tehran's disputed nuclear programme, but Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said that uranium enrichment - the key issue for the other parties to the talks - will not be up for negotiation.