Vienna, Sept 15. (dpa/GNA) – Austrian authorities have denied entry to Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran’s nuclear programme, triggering a diplomatic dispute at the opening of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) annual conference in Vienna on Monday.
Eslami is subject to UN sanctions, that include entry bans. Austria had applied to the relevant UN Security Council committee for an exemption, but this was refused, said Austria’s UN ambassador in Vienna, Christian Ebner.
US Ambassador Preston Wells Griffith, said his country supported the move, adding that Washington could not permit Eslami’s travel given Tehran’s lack of cooperation with IAEA nuclear inspectors.
Griffith said he held Eslami responsible for the production of uranium, enriched to a level approaching weapons-grade.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry had responded by summoning Austria’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Baghai said.
Austria had discredited itself as a host country for international organizations, Reza Najafi, Iran’s UN ambassador in Vienna, said.
The diplomat accused the US of having engineered the entry ban. The sanctions against Eslami were imposed in 2008, when the Security Council determined that Eslami, as head of a military research institute, had been involved in activities potentially related to nuclear weapons.
Last week, the IAEA referred the nuclear dispute with Iran back to the UN Security Council, in a move initiated by the US, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
The board noted that the IAEA had neither recent information on Iran’s uranium stockpiles nor access to its nuclear facilities.
Following US and Israeli bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, Tehran argues that allowing the IAEA to obtain information from inside the country would endanger national security.
Conservative hardliners have accused IAEA head Rafael Grossi of espionage. Iranian lawmakers are also pushing plans for the country to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
GNA