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The United States and Canada share concerns about the extent of Iran's nuclear programs and Tehran's poor human rights record, US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Canadian Foreign Minsiter Pierre Pettigrew said Friday. Washington and Ottawa will both look for tough action on Iran from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) when it meets next month in Vienna and will press Tehran to resolve lingering questions about the death in custody in Iran of a Canadian-Iranian photographer last year, they said. "We are very preoccupied by the nuclear proliferation and we are not pleased at all with the way the Iranians are conducting this particular question of nuclear proliferation," Pettigrew told reporters after meeting Powell at the State Department. "This is something on which we need to cooperate and make sure that Iran respects international obligations and absolutely limits that," he said. The United States, which accuses of Iran of hiding a nuclear weapons development program under the guise of a civilian atomic energy program, is leading a charge at the IAEA to push Tehran into respecting commitments under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and bring it into compliance with a pledge to suspend all enrichment-related activities. Iran vehemently rejects the US charges but has bristled at pressure from the IAEA which has found it to be in violation of several commitments. In addition to the nuclear issue, Pettigrew said Canada had serious concerns about the investigation into the death of the photographer, Zahra Kazemi, who died in Iranian custody in July 2003 after being arrested for taking photos outside a prison. Despite a conclusion by Iran's reformist government that the 54-year-old photographer had died from a brain hemorrhage caused by a blow to her skull, an Iranian court last month acquitted a security agent in her murder, ruling she had injured herself in a fall after having been on a hunger strike. Canada has categorically rejected the latest explanation, deepening a diplomatic rift over the affair, and Pettigrew on Friday called Kazemi's death an "assassination" and termed the Iranian investigation into the matter "a farce." "We have no cooperation from the Iranian government," he said, noting the requests for Kazemi's body to be returned to Canada had not been met. "We have realized that the whole justice system has been treating this as a farce, unfortunately," Pettigrew said, adding that he intended to raise the issue next month when the United Nations General Assembly convenes. Iran's decision to bar Canadian diplomats from the last day of hearings in the case in July prompted a furious Ottawa to recall its ambassador to the Islamic Republic and a senior Canadian foreign ministry official said privately that relations with Iran might be downgraded. All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Quick Links
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