UN envoy row not impacting Iran nuclear talks, says US

AFP/Tehran

The United States’ refusal to issue a visa to Iran’s pick for UN ambassador is not impacting talks over the country’s disputed nuclear programme, Washington’s envoy to the United Nations said yesterday.

Washington has said it won’t issue a visa to newly appointed Hamid Abutalebi, who has been linked to the 1979 US hostage crisis.

Iran, in response, has insisted the objection is unacceptable.

The dispute threatens to cloud a gradual thaw in relations between the two enemies after decades of mistrust.

The spat comes as Tehran and world powers engage in negotiations aimed at transforming a temporary accord on Iran’s nuclear programme into a permanent agreement.

In an interview with ABC’s This Week programme, the US envoy to the UN said Washington was focused on continuing those so-called P5+1 talks involving the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

“Nothing in this quite public confrontation so far has had any impact on that,” ambassador Samantha Power said.

“Again, so far we had talks just last week. We’ll have more high-level talks in the next month,” she added when prodded about potential harm.

“And our experts are meeting every day. We have not seen this issue influence those talks in any way. And the urgency, of course, of that issue is plain to everyone.”

Under a November deal, which took effect on January 20, Iran froze certain nuclear activities for six months in exchange for minor relief from sanctions hurting its economy.

Now the powers want Iran to reduce permanently, or at least long-term, the scope of its programme in order to make any dash to create an atomic bomb extremely difficult and easily detectable.

Iran in return wants all sanctions lifted.

“We would expect that Iran’s own interest in getting out from under economic sanctions, which is what it says it wants—our interests, certainly, in making sure that Iran doesn’t possess or develop a nuclear weapon, that that’s what is going to be paramount here,” Power said.

Tehran denies it has any ambitions to develop nuclear arms, but has failed to allow verifications that would satisfy the West in particular.

As the host government, the United States is obliged to issue visas to diplomats who serve at the United Nations, headquartered in New York.

Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said yesterday the country will need 30,000 of its new generation centrifuges to meet domestic fuel demands, far more than the current number.

Iran currently has nearly 19,000 centrifuges, including 10,000 of the so-called first generation being used to enrich uranium.

“If we want to use the Natanz enrichment facility to produce the annual fuel of Bushehr nuclear power plant, we need to build 30,000 new centrifuges,” Salehi was quoted by the Fars news agency as saying.

Under the interim deal, Iran cannot increase its number of centrifuges, but in February it announced it was developing new ones that are 15 times more powerful than those currently used.

Any final deal with the West may involve Iran slashing its number of centrifuges, changing the design of a new reactor at Arak and giving UN inspectors more oversight.

The Bushehr plant, which produces 1,000 megawatts of electricity, came into service in 2011 after several delays blamed on technical problems. Tehran took control of the plant from Russia last year.

In October, Salehi said Iran had built a fuel production line for its sole nuclear power plant which would go on stream within three months.

However, he did not specify a date after which Iran could use locally produced fuel instead of that provided by Russia.

Iran has said it wants to produce 20,000 megawatts of electricity from nuclear power, which would require building 20 reactors.