Reuters, Agence France Presse, Arab News

TEHRAN, 20 December 2003 � Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said yesterday by signing up to UN snap nuclear checks of its nuclear facilities, Iran showed its atomic ambitions were entirely peaceful. �They (the US) wanted to accuse Iran of having nuclear weapons, but this has foiled their plots,� the influential ex-president told worshipers at Friday prayers in Tehran, broadcast live on state radio.

The United States has said Iran�s nuclear program is a smokescreen for a building atomic weapons. Rafsanjani said Iran, which has always said its nuclear scientists are working on ways to meet booming electricity demand, now expected technical assistance with its atomic program.

On Thursday, Iran signed an agreement at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna allowing the UN nuclear watchdog to conduct snap inspections across its territory. The signature to the Additional Protocol to the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty comes nearly 18 months after an exiled Iranian opposition group sparked an international crisis by saying Tehran was hiding several large nuclear facilities. The allegations proved to be true.

Rafsanjani cautioned that full approval for the signature would take time. It must be sent to parliament as a bill then approved by the Guardian Council. Analysts say Iran�s reformist government would never have embarked on the deal without the green light from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has the last word on all state matters.

Rafsanjani heads the powerful Expediency Council that arbitrates between the predominantly reformist parliament and the 12-member hard-line supervisory body, the Guardian Council. �The ball is now in the (Westerners�) court,� he said. �We have a long time until the definitive adoption of the additional protocol� by the Iranian Parliament. �If the other countries also keep to their commitments, the process that is under way will succeed.�

Rafsanjani was insisting that, in exchange for signing the protocol and for steps it has taken in recent months to shed light on its nuclear program, Western countries help it �by furnishing the technology necessary� for developing civilian atomic energy.

�But if they want to trick us, to profit from the situation or to create a climate of menace and fear, they will get nothing,� he warned in the sermon. �I hope that the leaders of the world will have the intelligence to understand that it is the interests of the region and of the world for them to fulfill their commitments.�

Rafsanjani also said the United States should be put on trial for backing Iraq during Saddam Hussein�s 1980-1988 war with Iran. Iranians blame the former Iraqi president for what they call the �imposed war� in which about 300,000 Iranians died, including thousands killed by chemical weapons attacks.

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