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Ambassador says Iran didn't try for nuclear weapons

UNITED NATIONS - Iran's ambassador to the United Nations said Monday an Iranian opposition group is feeding fabricated evidence to Washington that purports to show the Tehran government tried to produce nuclear weapons.

Ambassador Mohammad Khazee said in an interview the United States is getting unreliable intelligence from the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which was allied with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. The United States and the European Union list it as a terrorist group.

Khazee said that Iran has resolved outstanding issues about its nuclear program and that Tehran should not face new U.N. sanctions. He warned new sanctions would harm "the credibility" of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The U.N. Security Council, however, is expected to approve a third round of sanctions against Iran this week for its defiance of a council demand it suspend uranium enrichment.

Khazee said at a news conference if new sanctions are approved "it would not be logical to comply with the resolution."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice disputed the Iranian assessment of the IAEA report, saying it provided strong grounds for the new sanctions.

She cited Iran's continued enrichment work and its failure to respond credibly to U.S. allegations that Iran conducted research into explosives and missile design in the 1990s that were linked to atomic weapons.

Khazee told reporters that when the IAEA raised the U.S. allegations and showed Iran documents Feb. 15, his government knew the papers were fabricated because "they gave us some names that ... do not exist" and named some people who "have not been involved in the nuclear program of Iran."

The IAEA report noted Iran rejected documents that link it to missile and explosives experiments and other work connected to a possible nuclear weapons program, calling the information false and irrelevant.

[Last modified February 25, 2008, 23:51:30]