VIENNA, March 9, (Agencies): World powers told Iran on Wednesday “the door remains open” for dialogue on its disputed nuclear programme, and that Tehran must cooperate with the UN atomic watchdog to resolve concerns it may have military aims.
The six powers issued a rare joint statement at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in a bid to show unity and to step up pressure on Iran after their talks with the Islamic state in December and January failed to make progress.
It was issued after IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano on Monday, the first day of a meeting of the agency’s board, said information his office recently received added to concerns about possible military aspects to Iran’s atomic activities.
Amano voiced growing frustration at what the Vienna-based body sees as Iran’s failure to address allegations it may be working to develop a nuclear-armed missile.

The statement from the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and China said: “We call on Iran to cooperate fully with the Agency ... Outstanding issues need to be resolved in order to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.”
It was the first joint statement by the big powers at the IAEA since March 2009.
Iran denies Western accusations it is seeking nuclear weapons capability, saying its atomic activities are aimed at generating electricity so it can export more of its oil and gas.
For several years, the IAEA has been investigating Western intelligence reports indicating Iran has coordinated efforts to process uranium, test explosives at high altitude and revamp a ballistic missile cone so that it can take a nuclear warhead.
Iran, one of the world’s biggest oil producers, says the allegations are based on forged documents.
The powers’ statement said two rounds of talks with Iran in Geneva in December and in Istanbul in January did not reach any substantive result, despite their “constructive spirit” and practical ideas aimed at building confidence.

“We expect Iran to demonstrate a pragmatic attitude and to respond positively to our proposals and to our openness toward dialogue and negotiations,” the statement, read out by Russian Ambassador Grigory Berdennikov at the closed-door meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation governing board, said.
“The door remains open,” the statement said.
The US envoy to the IAEA, Ambassador Glyn Davies, made a separate statement to the board, about the “increasingly apparent military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme, including efforts by Iran to develop a nuclear warhead”.
He urged Amano to report “promptly to the board his best assessment of whether there have been military dimensions to nuclear activities in Iran and, if so, whether he is in a position to verify they have stopped”.
The UN Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Tehran since 2006 for refusing to freeze its uranium enrichment programme, which can have both civilian and military purposes.
“We came to Geneva and Istanbul with a constructive spirit and proposed in Istanbul several practical ideas aimed at building confidence and to facilitate the engagement of a constructive dialogue with Iran on the basis of reciprocity and step-by-step approach,” said Russian governor Grigory Berdennikov on behalf of the P5+1 at an ongoing IAEA meeting at its Vienna headquarters.
While no “substantive result” was reached in Istanbul, “we look to Iran to engage in future in a similarly constructive spirit,” Berdennikov said.

In a statement on behalf of the 27-nation EU, Hungary expressed “serious concern” about Iran’s refusal the so-called “alleged studies” since August 2008.
Hungary suggested that “it might be helpful if (Amano) could provide the board with a comprehensive analysis on possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.”
In his latest report on Iran, the director general had revealed that the IAEA was in possession of “new information” that the weaponsiation work — including uranium conversion, high explosives testing and the adaptation of a ballistic missile cone to carry a nuclear warhead — may have gone on beyond 2004, which is more recently than initially thought.
So far, Iran has dismissed the evidence as “fabricated”, but refused to discuss the matter any further.
In his own statement to the board Wednesday, Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh took a simliar line.

The US and the EU “have once again repeated the unfounded assetion questioning the exclusive peaceful nature of our nuclear activities without presenting any authenticated evidence,” Soltanieh complained.
His US counterpart, Glyn Davies, warned that Iran could soon find itself censured by the IAEA board of governors if it continued to block the IAEA investigation.
“For this board, the decision was made to let the report and let the words of the members of the board of governors speak for themselves, rather than to run a resolution at this stage,” Davies told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting.
“We’ll see what happens in June. The last resolution we ran was in late 2009. But I can see that time coming very quickly when we may need to do that again in order to even more formally underscore our concern about the Iranian case,” he said.