Zeenews Bureau
Tehran: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday directed the West to "correct its manners" if it wants Iranians to respect it.
Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency officials renewed their talks with Iranian envoys aimed at persuading Tehran to allow IAEA experts to visit a suspect site at the Parchin military complex.
"If the West corrects its manners and respects the Iranian people, in return it will gain the respect of the Iranians," the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying in the northeastern city of Qoochan where he is on a provincial tour.
"They should know that the Iranian nation will not retreat a step over its fundamental right," he said.
In the meantime, a senior UN nuclear agency official urged Iran to allow access to sites, people and documents it seeks in its probe of suspicions that Tehran conducted secret research into nuclear weapons development.
The agency believes that Iran used Parchin military complex to test multipoint explosives of the type used to set off a nuclear charge. Iran denies such experiments and insists it has no plans to turn its civilian nuclear program to making weapons.
An image said to come from inside an Iranian military site shows an explosives containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that UN inspectors suspect Tehran has conducted at the site.
Iran denies such testing and has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a chamber.
IAEA deputy director general Herman Nackaerts said the agency was seeking Iran`s cooperation, ahead of Monday`s talks at Iran`s mission to the IAEA and other Vienna-based UN organisations.
"We are here to continue our dialogue with Iran in a positive spirit," Nackaerts told reporters. "The aim of our two days (talks) is to reach an agreement on an approach to resolve all outstanding issues with Iran.”
"In particular, clarification of the possible military dimensions remains our priority," Nackaerts said, adding: "It`s important now that we can engage on the substance on these issues and that Iran let us access people, information, documents and sites."
The talks ended at mid-afternoon with neither side commenting. They were set to resume on Tuesday morning.
(With Agency’s inputs)
