Australian FM hopes for peaceful settlement of Iran's nuclear case

Australian Deputy Foreign Minister Paul Grekson in a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Seyed Abbas Araqchi expressed the hope that the stalemate created between Tehran and the western powers over Iran's nuclear program will be settled peacefully and diplomatically.During the meeting on Wednesday, Grekson expressed the hope that the Iranian nuclear dispute with the West would be solved through holding diplomatic talks.Araqchi, for his part, expressed hope that the western countries would recognize Iran's enrichment right and move on the path of trust-building with Tehran.Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.