Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a statement on Thursday that it was his duty to warn the world about suspected Iranian activities that point to plans to develop atomic weapons, setting the ground rules ahead of talks between Iran and the IAEA scheduled for Jan 29-31. "What we know suggests the development of nuclear weapons," Amano told the Financial Times Deutschland in an article published on Thursday. "We want to check over everything that could have a military dimension. It is my responsibility to alarm the world. The more pieces (of information), the clearer the pattern becomes." Amano added his dismissal of Iranian accusation that his agency had anything to do with the recent assassination of an Iranian scientist. "We did not publish his name. I did not know him," Amano said about the Jan 11 killing of Dr. Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan in Tehran.
Elsewhere, the EU agreed on Thursday to the imposition of sanctions on Iran's central bank, freezing assets potentially used to finance its nuclear drive, but stopped short of endorsing a complete embargo on oil. One diplomat who was in the meetings told AFP that efforts to impose an embargo will continue, but fragile economies like Greece and Italy, who depend heavily on imports of Iranian oil, were demanding guarantees “that all is done to protect them."
Finally, the US Navy rescued yet another stricken Iranian fishing boat on Thursday in the third such incident in the last two weeks.
