By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow : Russia has lashed out at the IAEA’s latest report on Iran, saying it undermines the international effort to defuse tension around the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme and holds it guilty without cause.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report does not contain any new data but is “a compilation of known facts that have been purposely twisted and given a political slant”, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The authors juggle the facts to create the impression that Iran’s nuclear programme has a military component,” the statement said.
“This approach can hardly be called professional and unbiased,” it said.
The report “a priori delivers a guilty verdict” on Iran, it said.
Iran continued carrying out nuclear weapons research after 2003, the IAEA said in the report.
According to the report, Iran continued nuclear weapons research and technology development after 2003, at a time when it declared a halt in its nuclear programme. The report said that Iran had temporarily frozen nuclear activities, but that there was evidence the programme continued to be carried out at a more modest pace.
Iranian officials slammed the report as a distortion of facts aimed at satisfying US political interests.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called IAEA head Yukiya Amano a US puppet.