Iran rejects accusations it inflamed violence over prophet caricatures, demands apology

TEHRAN, Iran -- The Iranian government on Sunday rejected an accusation by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that it has fanned violent protests over caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and demanded an apology, saying that could reduce growing tension.

Rice, meanwhile, said Iran and Syria should be urging their citizens to remain calm -- not encouraging violence like last week's attacks on Western diplomatic missions in Tehran, Damascus and Beirut, Lebanon. Nearly a dozen people also were killed in protests in Afghanistan.

"If people continue to incite it, it could spin out of control," she said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" as furor mounted over the cartoons.

The drawings have been reprinted in several publications in Europe, the United States and elsewhere in what publishers say is a show of solidarity for freedom of expression.

The images offended many Muslims as Islam widely holds that representations of the prophet are banned for fear they could lead to idolatry.

But some suggest the genuine anger displayed by crowds across the Muslim world has been exploited or intensified by some Muslim countries in the region to settle scores with Western powers.

Rice said Wednesday that "Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes. And the world ought to call them on it."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said an apology from Rice and Denmark could help.

"What happened was a natural reaction," Asefi said, adding that "an apology could alleviate the tension."

He spoke as one of Iran's largest newspapers opened a contest today seeking caricatures of the Holocaust. Hamshahri newspaper said it wanted to test whether the West extends its principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the cartoons of Islam's prophet.

Also on Sunday, Iran reaffirmed its commitment to a nuclear arms control treaty and urged a peaceful solution to the international crisis over concerns it is seeking to develop atomic weapons, a day after its hard-line president issued a veiled threat to withdraw from the pact.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, meanwhile, began a mission to Iran to learn just what controls remain on nuclear sites and equipment after Tehran ended all but minimum cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.

In Vienna, Austria, a diplomat said Saturday that some International Atomic Energy Agency seals and cameras had been removed from Iranian nuclear sites within the last few days, suggesting that happened without IAEA supervision. But others familiar with the probe said they doubted the Iranians would make such a move before the arrival of the inspectors, which occurred over the weekend.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran would cooperate with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the safeguards it provides.

"We are still committed to the provisions of the NPT. But we can't accept its use as a (political) instrument," Asefi said at a weekly news conference.

On Saturday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected U.S. and European pressure to resume a freeze the country's nuclear program and hinted that Iran might withdraw from the treaty.

"The nuclear policy of the Islamic Republic so far has been peaceful. Until now, we have worked inside the agency (IAEA) and the NPT regulations," he said in a speech before tens of thousands of Iranians marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

"If we see you want to violate the right of the Iranian people by using those regulations (against us), you should know that the Iranian people will revise its policies," he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that such a move by Iran "would only deepen their own isolation," citing a recent IAEA decision to report the country to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions, after months of failed talks between the Iranians and European negotiators.

"The really remarkable thing over the last several months is that there's really now a tremendous coalition of countries that are saying exactly the same thing to Iran," she said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

"And so, the Iranians now need to step back, look at where they are, see that they're isolated on this issue, and return to a state in which they would ... get back into good graces with the IAEA, and get back into negotiations with those who are prepared to offer them a course for civil nuclear power," she said.

Tehran repeatedly has stressed the nuclear arms control treaty allows it to pursue a nuclear program for peaceful purposes and it has said it will never give up the right to enrich uranium to produce nuclear fuel. The U.S. and its European allies believe Iran is seeking to develop atomic weapons.

Uranium enriched to a low degree can be used for nuclear reactors, while highly enriched uranium is suitable for warheads.

North Korea -- the world's other major proliferation concern -- quit the NPT in January 2003, just a few months before U.S. officials announced that Pyongyang had told them it had nuclear weapons and may test, export or use them depending on U.S. actions.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman urged the IAEA and the Europeans to keep open diplomatic channels.

"The agency and other parties should not block roads to Islamic Republic of Iran and should solve the case in the framework of the regulations," Asefi said.

He rejected comments by British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, who said last week that there was no proof but "very high level of suspicion" that Iran was trying to build a nuclear weapon.

"How do you apply a policy of non-trust toward Iran when there is no proof that Iran is trying to divert its nuclear program toward a weapon?" Asefi asked.

Tensions escalated last month after Iran removed U.N. seals and began nuclear research, including small-scale uranium enrichment at its plant in Natanz, central Iran.

Diplomats in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, said the agency still has some seals and equipment at Natanz and Isfahan, where Iran is converting raw uranium into the feedstock gas for enrichment. The seals and cameras were allowed under basic agreements linked to the nuclear arms control treaty, which Iran has signed.

Still, with those agreements only meant to monitor Iran's declared and existing nuclear stocks, they are considered inadequate in the agency's ongoing efforts to establish whether the country has tried to develop a nuclear weapons program at undeclared facilities. Iran also recently lifted the agency's rights to inspections on short notice.