‘Ban on UN officers a notice to IAEA chief’

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Iran said on Tuesday its barring of two nuclear inspectors serves as “notice” to the chief of the IAEA, but added Tehran was ready for talks with the UN atomic agency as suggested by France. “This action (banning the inspectors from entering Iran) is in reality a regulatory notice to (Yukiya) Amano to be careful so that the agency’s inspectors do not violate the international entity’s charter,” the official news agency IRNA quoted foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki as saying in a state television interview. “Amano should manage the agency professionally,” he said, referring to the chief of the UN atomic body, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
On Monday, Iran announced it was barring two IAEA inspectors from entering the country, accusing them of filing a “false report” and “leaking information” about Tehran’s nuclear programme which the West suspects masks a weapons drive.
The Islamic republic says its nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes. Iran’s atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said that Tehran told the IAEA at its latest meeting that the inspectors had filed a “totally wrong report and the two be replaced with two other inspectors who can visit the country.” Iran’s arch-foe Washington criticised Tehran, saying the ban on the inspectors was “symptomatic of its longstanding practice of intimidating inspectors.”

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Barak lashes out at plan to raze houses
Jerusalem, June 22: Under flak from US over plans to raze 22 Palestinian homes, Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday lashed Jerusalem authorities for “lack of common sense and sense of timing” on the issue.
Mr Barak, who is in the US for a series of meetings with top officials, faced criticism and demands for explanations after the Jerusalem municipal planning committee decided to destroy 22 houses in the Arab neighbourhood of Silwan on Monday. “The Jerusalem municipality and the planning committee have shown a lack of common sense and sense of timing — and not for the first time,” Barak said, in a reference to an earlier annou-ncement to build 1600 housing units in an Jerus-alem neighbourhood during the visit of US V-P. —PTI