Iran dismisses IAEA report as 'meaningless'

Iran must review its co-operation with the UN nuclear watchdog due to the allegedly hostile nature of a report on the country's atomic programme, Ali Larijani, the parliament speaker, says.
In an explicit warning to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Larijani said the tone of the report amounted to "hostility and a copy of orders" issued by Israel and the United States.
"Issues raised in the recent IAEA report, following weeks of hype, were rooted in the [policies of] the US and the Israeli regime," Larijani said during an open session of Iran's parliament, the Majlis, on Sunday, IRNA reported.
"The parliament deems necessary to review [Iran's] co-operation with the agency, because it showed with its new approach that co-operation and non-cooperation makes no difference in its decision, which are unprofessional anyway."
The Islamic Republic considers the report by Yukiya Amano, the IAEA director-general, as an instance of enmity, Larijani said.

'Necessary conclusions'

The latest report IAEA was circulated among the 35 members of the agency's board of governors on Tuesday, in advance of the seasonal meeting of the board, scheduled to begin in Vienna on November 17.

In the report, Amano said that Iran had engaged in activities related to developing nuclear weapons before 2003, and that these activities "may still be ongoing".

Larijani said that the report has been prepared in such a "meaningless and hasty" way that even some member states of the agency described it as senseless.
For his part, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said: "The IAEA report is a document that confirms the claims of the leading countries of the world and Israel too, that Iran is systematically developing nuclear weapons."
"All the responsible governments of the world will have to take the necessary conclusions on the IAEA report.
"The international community will have to stop the Iranian race to arm itself with a nuclear weapon, a race that is endangering the peace of the whole world."
Netanyahu is expected to brief ministers on the IAEA report later on Sunday.
'Extreme war frenzy'
In a related development, North Korea has accused the US and Israel of engaging in an "extreme war frenzy" over Iran's atomic programme, saying that a new war may break out in the Middle East.
According to a UN report which came out last year, Iran is among the countries which North Korea has supplied with banned nuclear and ballistic equipment using "surreptitious" means to avoid international sanctions.
Speculation has mounted in recent weeks that Israel could launch a strike on Iran, with President Shimon Peres warning last weekend that an attack was becoming "more and more likely".
"A dangerous situation is now prevailing in the Middle East whereby a new war may break out," Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency wrote in a commentary on Sunday.
It denounced the US and Israel for "openly revealing their scheme for military attack" on Iran.
"The extreme war frenzy shown by the US and Israel is a very dangerous deed that may drive the Mideast region to disasters of new war, in the wake of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the present century," the commentary said.