By IRNA,
Kuala Lumpur : Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Saturday that a new atmosphere in Iran’s nuclear activities has been created.
Mottaki made the remarks in an interview with Malaysian satellite TV channel Astro on Saturday.
The Iranian foreign minister is in Kuala Lumpur to attend the 11th foreign ministers meeting of the Eight Developing Countries (D8).
Peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities is not something new and dated back to 50 years ago, he said.
The US and Germany in 1957 began construction of Bushehr nuclear power plant but after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran which brought a democratic government to power they put an end to their efforts and changed their stance in dealing with Iran’s nuclear activities, Mottaki said.
On Iran’s response to the proposed package by the group 5+1, he said that Iran has offered a package to international community and the UN secretary general which underlined that the country is ready to hold talks on the most important global developments such as global security, energy crisis, food crisis as well as regional developments.
In the package, Iran, as a big country, has voiced readiness to play a much more active role in current developments in the sensitive Middle East region, he said.
On the ongoing crises in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Tajikistan, he said that the Middle East region is core of domestic and regional crisis and the resolution of which requires collective cooperation among regional countries, he said.
Iran’s resistance coupled with its interaction with international community has urged five out of six foreign ministers involved in Iran’s nuclear talks to send a letter to underline that Iran has the legal right to make use of peaceful nuclear energy and that the country’s nuclear issue should be resolved through negotiations, he said.
“Solana’s visit to Tehran along with the talks between both sides on the commonalties of the two proposed packages has created a new atmosphere and we believe that this has brought a new potential to resolve Iran’s nuclear issue,’ he pointed out.
He expressed hope that with the start of the new round of talks in the near future, the new Modality would be approved in the first stage.
On the impacts of economic sanctions over Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities, he said the issue is outdated and is no longer of any use.
Since the US has been trapped in the Afghanistan and Iraq, it is not able to create a new crisis in the Middle East region, he underlined.