"With the help of the UN, China and other free and independent countries, we hope soon to see popular elections in Iraq, national rule established there, and rehabilitation setting in," said the President.
Iranian nuclear programs were prominent on the agenda. The matter has been over-politicized, President Khatami pointed out with regret. "Certain countries" are unlawfully pressuring Iran on the matter. As things really are, the programs are civil-oriented, and offer no legal and technical problems whatsoever. IAEA experts have inspected Iranian nuclear projects to confirm the point. Muhammad ElBaradei, IAEA Director General, said so in a recent report, stressed the President.
China's Foreign Minister, in his turn, reassured that China was determined to further promote Iranian negotiations with the IAEA, the UK, France and Germany so that the issue would come to a final settlement. Flexible contacts with the Agency will certainly prevent the Iranian nuclear file passed to the UN Security Council, reassured Li Zhaoxing.
The IAEA Board of Directors is gathering for session, toward this month's end. The board is expected to make a final decision on the Iranian nuclear file. The U.S. appears tired of playing cat-and-mouse with Iran, and is determined to demand the matter passed to the UN Security Council for consideration and eventual anti-Iranian sanctions. More than that, the United States is wary of Russian-Iranian nuclear partnership, as Russia is building a light water reactor at Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant, and the construction is coming to an end. As the U.S. suspects, the efforts are a mere blind to pass sensitive nuclear technologies to Iran and train its nuclear arms experts thus to bring Iran closer to an A-bomb of its own.
To find a way out of the deadlock, the European Trio is willing to supply Iran with cutting-edge nuclear technologies and fuel, light water reactors being no exception-but only if Iran makes practical steps to clearly prove that it has given up secret nuclear arms programs. The Trio would not put up with Iran's uranium enrichment projects and efforts to acquire a full nuclear cycle.
