No need to review atom cooperation-Iran president

al-Reuters ^ | June 2, 2008 | Reporting by Hossein Jaseb; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Peter Millership

[Schnucki]

TEHRAN - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday there was no need to review cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency now, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad was speaking a day after Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman suggested the Islamic Republic might have to limit its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), criticising a report released by the agency last week.

The Vienna-based U.N. agency said in a May 26 report Tehran's alleged research into nuclear warheads was a matter of serious concern and that it should provide more information on its missile-related work.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear arms. Tehran denies the charge but its refusal to suspend sensitive nuclear work has prompted three rounds of U.N. sanctions since 2006.

Iran's new parliament speaker Ali Larijani, the country's former chief nuclear negotiator, last week said the current levels of cooperation with the IAEA were in jeopardy if major powers continued to "kick around" Iran's disputed nuclear case.

Asked whether Iran planned to review cooperation with the agency, Ahmadinejad was quoted by IRNA as saying: "There is no necessity now to review that."

But, he added, parliament's "warning was an appropriate one. The Majles (parliament) is standing firmly on the defence of the nation's right."

Iran in 2006 ended voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty that allowed for short notice IAEA inspections of its nuclear sites.

The IAEA has been pressing Tehran to provide answers to Western intelligence accusations that it covertly studied how to design atomic bombs. Iran has rejected the intelligence as baseless, forged or irrelevant.

World powers have prepared an enhanced package of economic and other incentives for Iran if it suspends its most sensitive nuclear work, something Tehran has consistently refused to do.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana is expected to travel to Tehran soon and submit the package.