Iran's Khatami calls for calm heads in nuke row

Davos (Switzerland), Jan 25: Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami today called for calm heads to reduce building tensions between the United States and his country over its nuclear programme.

''I hope that they would be good enough in managing the situation. We deeply need patience and understanding and not to get too emotional,'' Khatami said at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.

Tehran and Washington have collided head-on over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's decision last February to resume the country's uranium enrichment programme, reversing a more than two-year pause under Khatami's government.

Iran says it needs nuclear power to generate electricity but the West is concerned it is secretly seeking an atom bomb.

In December, the United Nations voted to impose sanctions on Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology to try and stop enrichment work that could produce bomb material.

This week, Iran banned 38 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors from working in the country. On Tuesday it said it was still cooperating with the UN watchdog, which has a pool of about 200 inspectors qualified to check Iranian sites.

Khatami declined to comment on the decision to ban the group of IAEA inspectors, whom diplomats said were all Westerners.

The United States has urged Iran to sit down for talks on its nuclear programme or face tougher sanctions if IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei tells the Security Council in a report due on February 21 that Tehran is not complying with UN demands.

Ahmadinejad has called the UN resolution a ''piece of torn paper'' and vowed to press ahead with the nuclear programme.

Khatami also threw his support behind the US Iraq Study Group proposal for the Bush administration to involve Iran in regional talks about the future of Iraq.

''Rather than confrontation, it would be better to cooperate and have dialogue with Iran and Syria,'' Khatami told reporters after attending a panel discussion on the outlook for Iraq.

REUTERS

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