TEHRAN, (AP) – The Iranian authorities have arrested a nuclear negotiator on an unspecified security charge, the state news agency reported Wednesday, even as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was saying the country would not retreat "even an iota" from its pursuit of nuclear technology.
Citing an "unofficial informed source," the IRNA press agency said that Hossein Mousavian was arrested in Tehran on Monday. He was a member of the state’s nuclear negotiating team until 2005 and was the ambassador to Germany in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Mousavian is known as an ally of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who was defeated by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential elections. Ahmadinejad replaced the entire negotiating team, including Mousavian, when he took office.
The authorities did not specify the charge against Mousavian. Such charges in Iran usually range from treason to violating state security or national interests. The cases are heard before the Revolutionary Courts.
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad said that Iran would resist attempts to curtail its rights in developing nuclear technology for peaceful, electricity-generating purposes and would "cut off hands of invaders" if it were attacked. Western nations assert that Tehran is trying to make nuclear weapons.
"Our nation will not give up its rights even an iota," the president said in a speech in Kerman, about 1,000 kilometers, or 650 miles, southeast of the capital, Tehran. "In the important nuclear issue, implementation of justice is the demand of the Iranian nation. Our nation says, ‘Law for everyone, rights for everyone.’ "
Ahmadinejad’s speech came before another United Nations Security Council deadline – set for late May – for Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program or face further punishment.
The council imposed limited sanctions in December, then strengthened them because Iran refused to suspend enrichment and meet a first 60-day deadline to stop.
The enrichment process can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or, if taken to a higher degree, the material for atomic bombs.
Earlier in April, Ahmadinejad said additional UN sanctions would only prompt Iran to step up its nuclear development.
The United Nations’ latest sanctions have banned Iranian arms exports and have frozen the assets of 28 individuals and companies involved in its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. Iran rejected the sanctions and partly suspended its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog.
Also in April, Iran said it had begun operating 3,000 centrifuges at its facility in Natanz – nearly 10 times the previously known number.
