Iran, pressed on nuclear activities, wraps up summit

Iran on Friday closed a summit of non-aligned states after two days of sometimes conflictual speeches over Syria and stepped-up pressure over its nuclear programme that overshadowed the proceedings.Representatives from the 120 members of the Non-Aligned Movement adopted a document that condemned unilateral sanctions, backed the right of Iran and other states to peaceful nuclear energy, and supported the creation of a Palestinian state, Iranian media reported.The document also reportedly advocated nuclear disarmament, human rights free from political agendas and opposition to racism and Islamophobia. The text was not available late Friday on the foreign ministry website dedicated to the summit.President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chaired the closing ceremony, reflecting his countrys presidency of the NAM for the next three years, after which it will pass to Venezuela.With around 30 heads of state or government attending, and senior officials filling out the other two-thirds of the heavily secured hall, Iran portrayed the summit as a triumph over Western attempts to isolate it over its disputed nuclear activities.Ahmadinejad said the summit was unique in quality and in the number of participants.But the nuclear issue came back to take a bite out of that goal, with the UN atomic watchdog releasing a report half way through the summit accusing Iran of having significantly hampered inspectors efforts to investigate a suspect military site, Parchin.The report also said Iran had in the past three months installed more than 1,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges in its fortified Fordo nuclear bunker that is one of the prime concerns of the United States and fellow permanent UN Security Council members.Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his opening speech on Thursday, railed against the dictatorship of the Security Council.He said Iran would never cease its nuclear energy activities, which he asserted were not aimed at developing nuclear weapons.Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi also rejected the Parchin allegations, telling the ISNA news agency they had no technical basis and that one cannot clean a site of nuclear work.A member of the Iranian parliaments national security and foreign policy committee, Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, called the timing of the release of the International Atomic Energy Agency report politically motivated.