U.S.: Iran Cooperation Insufficient

Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Olli Heinonen, left, and a top Iranian nuclear negotiator Javad Vaeedi attend a joint press conference after their talks in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) (Vahid Salemi - AP)

"This appears to be a deliberate (U.S.) campaign to derail the process," said one of the diplomats. "It is dangerous to dismiss it before even having seen the details."

In Azerbaijan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also demanded that other countries respect its right to produce atomic energy and said nothing had been achieved by trying to stop its program _ criticisms apparently directed at the United States.

"Our aim in developing nuclear technology is the improvement of the well-being and living standards of our people," Ahmadinejad said during a visit to the former Soviet republic.

Without naming any nations, he said "certain forces ... want to deprive our people of this right. They resort to any methods _ economic, psychological and military pressure. But despite this, they have achieved nothing. Iran has legally created nuclear technology."

Iran has refused to answer questions about secret plutonium experiments in the mid-1990s and IAEA findings that Iran has not accounted for all the plutonium it has said it possessed. IAEA experts also want to know more about unexplained traces of plutonium and enriched uranium found last year at a nuclear waste facility, and about the so-called Green Salt Project.

Diplomats told The Associated Press last year that the agency was trying to follow up on U.S. intelligence that described the project as linking uranium enrichment-related experiments to nuclear-related high explosives and warhead design.

Iran dismissed that intelligence as "based on false and fabricated documents."

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