Iran has serious and full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since its nuclear activities are all transparent and it has nothing to hide, a senior Iranian diplomat said.

"We are after nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and that is completely within the framework of our legal and legitimate rights and that is why we are insisting on this legitimate right, because our people should be able to use this technology for energy and medical purposes," Iran's Envoy to Paris Ali Ahani said.

"We have shown our good intention and the necessary transparency to the public opinion in a bid to substantiate that our program has no military dimension," Ahani told Voice of Russia.

He pointed to Iran's serious cooperation with the IAEA, and added that the UN nuclear watchdog has had an unprecedented number of inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, including 100 snap inspections.

"We are fully transparent and have nothing to hide," the Iranian diplomat said.

The latest report released by the International Atomic Energy Agency chief on Iran acknowledges that Tehran is conducting its uranium enrichment activities successfully and under the supervision of the UN nuclear watchdog's inspectors.

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 and western embargos 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.

The Islamic Republic says that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of IAEA's questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.

Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.
mehr/281

News ID 184437