"Kazakhstan is an impartial country on Iran's nuclear issue and the country's stance is very important to us," Chairman of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Monday.
"Kazakhstan is an Islamic country whose stance on Iran's nuclear issue is neutral, and it is important to us that the hosting country is not an advocate and a follower of the oppressive policies of the western countries, specially the US, in the nuclear grounds," Boroujerdi told the Iranian students news agency.
Earlier this month, Deputy chief negotiators of Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) agreed on the date and venue of the next round of talks between Iran and the six world powers.
Iran's deputy chief negotiator Ali Baqeri and EU foreign policy deputy chief Helga Schmitt in a phone talk on February 5 agreed that the next round of talks between Tehran and the Group 5+1 be held in Kazakhstan on February 26.
The last round of talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany was held in Moscow in June.
Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.
Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.
Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.
Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.
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Publish Date: 11 February 2013 - 23:22
Kazakhstan's impartial stance on Iran's nuclear issue was the main reason why Iran okayed the Central Asian country as the venue for the next round of talks between Tehran and the world powers, a prominent Iranian lawmaker explained.