WASHINGTON, July 13, (Agencies): An Iranian nuclear scientist, who Tehran claims was abducted by US forces, has been in the United States by choice “for some time” and is “free to go,” the US State Department said Tuesday.
“He’s been here for some time, I’m not going to specify for how long, but he has chosen to return,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.
“He has been here on his free will and is obviously free to go. In fact he was scheduled to travel to Iran yesterday and wasn’t able to make all the necessary arrangements to reach Iran through transit countries,” Crowley added.
Shahram Amiri surfaced at the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington, which handles Iranian affairs in the US capital, on Tuesday.
He has claimed he was kidnapped by US spies last year, though US television network ABC reported in March that he had defected and was working with the Central Intelligence Agency.
Iranian state media reported Monday that Amiri had asked “for a quick return to Tehran” after taking refuge in the office that represents Iran’s interests in the United States.
Archfoes Tehran and Washington have had no diplomatic ties for more than three decades.
Amiri told Iranian state television that US officials had wanted to try to resolve the affair quietly but had failed, the channel’s website said.
In June, a man claiming to be Amiri was shown in two separate videos broadcast on Iranian state television. In one of the videos he said he had escaped from US agents in Virginia.
US officials have long denied kidnapping Amiri, and Crowley refused to comment Tuesday on whether the Iranian had offered any information about Tehran’s controversial nuclear program.
“I can’t tell you. I have no information to suggest that he has been mistreated while in the United States,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said during a visit to Spain on Tuesday that the United States should allow Amiri to return to his homeland without delay.
“We hope that, without any obstacle, he can return to his country, that they (the United States), do not create any obstacle for his return to his homeland,” he told a news conference in Madrid.
A senior US official says that Turkey has agreed to stay out of international efforts to pressure Iran on its nuclear program.
The official told reporters that US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had asked Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in a 45 minute conversation Monday to leave the issue to UN Security council powers and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation, said Davutoglu agreed.
US-Turkish relations have suffered since Turkey voted against US-backed sanctions that ultimately passed in the UN Security Council last month.
The vote came shortly after Turkey tried to broker a nuclear fuel-swap deal with Iran as an alternative to sanctions.
The Turkish Embassy had no immediate comment on the Clinton-Davutoglu talks.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki rejected Tuesday as “totally false” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s statement that Iran is close to having the potential to build a nuclear weapon.
“The recent comments made by Medvedev regarding the Iranian nuclear theme are totally false and we deny them,” he told a news conference in Madrid.
“We do not know what the ultimate goal behind these comments is, what operations are behind it... But we maintain our position clearly and we are doing nothing but claiming our rights,” he added.
“Russia is our neighbour and we want to maintain good relations but we are critical of some of its positions.”
In the clearest indication yet of Russian alarm over Tehran’s atomic drive, Medvedev said on Monday that “Iran is nearing the possession of the potential which in principle could be used for the creation of a nuclear weapon”.
Russia, traditionally a diplomatic and economic ally of the Islamic republic, in the past took a milder line against Tehran than Western powers but recently noticeably hardened its position.
Iran has over the past months been announcing steady advances in its nuclear programme, in defiance of international calls for Tehran to freeze its sensitive uranium enrichment operations.
Sanctions
The development of Iran’s oil and gas industry will be hit in the longer term by tighter sanctions from the United Nations, United States and EU, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.
Iran, a major oil exporter and holder of the world’s second largest gas reserves, has been hit by a new wave of international sanctions and the United States has also stepped up its push to isolate Tehran economically.
“Longer term, development of the country’s oil and gas industry will clearly be adversely impacted,” the IEA, adviser to 28 industrialised countries, said in its monthly Oil Market Report.
The IEA said that because of the measures, “growing gas and natural gas liquids projects are expected to be hardest hit” by issues such as “constraints on procuring equipment”.
In June the IEA forecast that Iran’s production capacity of natural gas liquids and condensates would rise to just over 1 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2015 from about 520,000 bpd in 2009. However, in Tuesday’s report, the IEA said: “While most foreign partners have withdrawn from the gas projects on the drawing board, further constraints on procuring equipment and materials for active development projects now increase the downside risk to our forecast.”
Referring to this downside risk, the IEA cited sanctions by the UN and US, and proposed measures from the European Union. It noted that a UN resolution passed on June 9 “tightens the financial restrictions between Iranian banks and the international community”, and “imposes stricter regulations on shipping entities.”
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and its army have the strength to “cut off the hands” of Western powers.
“The power of the Revolutionary Guards and the army will cut off the hands of the arrogant and bullying powers,” Ahmadinejad told a gathering of Guards’ commanders, according to Sepahnews, the force’s website.
Hailing Iran’s strength as “indestructible,” the hardliner said the Guards were the symbol of Iran’s resistance against the United States and other Western powers.
“The world of arrogance (West) is weaker and it cannot hurt the Iranian nation,” he said.
Ties between Iran and the West have worsened under the presidency of Ahmadinejad following his dogged refusal to suspend Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.
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HAMBURG: Iran Air expects to find a new aviation fuel supplier at Germany’s Hamburg airport within days, the airline’s Germany manager said on Tuesday.
Two Iran Air aircraft were unable to refuel at the airport this month. Iran’s planes have also reportedly been denied fuel in three countries due to US sanctions.
Iran Air’s Germany manager Mohammad Reza Rajabi told Reuters he expected a new fuel agreement to be signed with a supplier in Hamburg “within a few days.”