Region

BEIRUT –– A passenger plane flying from Lebanon to Iraq on Thursday turned back after the Iraqi transport minister's son missed the flight and phoned Baghdad to stop the aircraft from landing, Middle East Airlines (MEA) said.

Marwan Salha, acting chairman of MEA, told Reuters the flight, scheduled to leave at 1240 (1040 GMT), had been delayed for six minutes while MEA staff looked for Mahdi al-Amiri, son of Hadi al-Amiri, and his friend in the business lounge.

"We made the necessary announcements and the last calls," he said. "The plane took off but one of the passengers turned out to be the son of the minister of Iraq."

Salha said that when Amiri arrived at the gate he was angry and said: "I will not allow the plane to land in Baghdad."

Twenty-one minutes into the flight, the Baghdad airport station manager called MEA operations to tell them there was no clearance to land, Salha said. The plane then returned to Beirut and the passengers disembarked.

"It's very disturbing because this is pure nepotism," Salha said, adding that he hoped to resume flights to Iraq on Friday but that there would not be another flight on Thursday.

Transport Minister Hadi al-Amiri is head of the Badr Organisation, once an armed Shi'ite militia, and a political ally of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Many Iraqis believe that relatives of elected officials and leaders of political parties act as if they are above the law.

Iraq's Transport Ministry confirmed the airliner had been turned around but said this was due to airport cleaning and that the minister's son had not been due to be a passenger on it.

Kareem al-Nuri, the transport minister's media adviser, said: "There were cleaning operations in the airport and specific measures were taken. We asked all flights not to land in Baghdad airport after 9 a.m. (0600 GMT) but this flight arrived after this time, so we asked it to turn back.

"This information (about the minister's son) is not true and the minister is not accepting such behaviour. The minister's son was not scheduled to take that flight at all."

An official at Baghdad airport, who asked not to be named, said air traffic was normal, with 30 flights landing on Thursday. The only one turned around was the one from Beirut.

Iraqis mocked Amiri and his son on social media as news of the incident spread. A girl named Diana wrote: "Sounds like Uday and his father rose from the grave", a reference to the late Saddam Hussein and his son Uday, known for arbitrary behaviour.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s army said Wednesday it struck two Hizbollah fighters as they were planting a bomb near the Israeli-Syrian frontier, a week after an air raid against the group inside Lebanon.

Tensions have been mounting between Israel and Hizbollah since the outbreak of Syria’s uprising, with Israel warning it will do “everything necessary” to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons from the Damascus regime to its Lebanese Shiite ally.

Israeli army sources said they expected further confrontation after Hizbollah threatened to retaliate for the February 24 bombardment, which was the first reported Israeli air raid against the militant group inside Lebanon since the 2006 war.

“Earlier today, two Hizbollah-affiliated terrorists were identified attempting to plant an explosive device near the Israel-Syria border in the northern Golan Heights,” Israel’s army announced in a statement Wednesday morning.

Israeli troops “fired towards the suspects [and] hits were identified,” it said.

The army did not specify what weapons were used to fire at the suspected Hizbollah members.

Military sources told AFP, on condition of anonymity, confirmed the suspected Hizbollah fighters were wounded, without elaborating on the seriousness of the injuries.

Hizbollah was not immediately available for comment.

“This incident is no surprise, and we believe that clashes with Hizbollah could follow in the coming days,” the military sources told AFP.

“After Hizbollah threatened last week to retaliate for the army raid, Israeli special forces were deployed at the border with Syria,” they said.

The incident came just over a week after reports that Israeli warplanes bombarded a Hizbollah position on the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Hizbollah threatened to retaliate for what was the first reported Israeli air raid on a position of the Shiite movement inside Lebanon since the 2006 war, which killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and some 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

“This new attack amounts to blatant aggression against Lebanon, its sovereignty and territory,” the armed movement said at the time, adding that “it will not stand without a response from the Resistance, which will choose the appropriate time, place and means”.

Israel neither confirmed nor denied carrying out the two February 24 strikes outside the Lebanon border town and Hizbollah bastion of Nabi Sheet, which were reported by Lebanese media and then acknowledged by the group.

Israeli warnings, reported raids 

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would do “everything that is necessary in order to defend the security of Israel,” adding cryptically: “We will not say what we’re doing or what we’re not doing.”

Israel is bent on halting any transfer of weapons to its archenemy Hizbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters across the border to aid Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime as it battles Sunni-led rebels.

In May 2013, Israel launched two raids targeting what it said were arms convoys near Damascus destined for Hizbollah.

And in November, there were reports of an Israeli strike against a Syrian air base where missiles to be supplied to Hizbollah were located.

Syria has long provided arms and other aid to Hizbollah, and served as a conduit for Iranian military aid to the movement.

Hizbollah, which brands itself a resistance movement against Israel, was formed in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and was the principal actor in ending Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.

Hizbollah acknowledged last spring that it is sending fighters into neighbouring Syria to support Assad’s forces in the country’s nearly three-year civil war.

The group has insisted its intervention in Syria is needed to protect the Lebanese from Sunni extremists, who have carried out several attacks targeting Hizbollah and Iranian targets in Lebanon in recent months.

GENEVA — All sides in Syria’s civil war are using shelling and siege tactics to punish civilians and big powers bear responsibility for allowing such war crimes to persist, UN human rights investigators said on Wednesday.

In their latest report documenting atrocities in Syria, they called again on the UN Security Council to refer grave violations of the rules of war to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution.

“The Security Council bears responsibility for allowing the warring parties to violate these rules with impunity,” the report by the UN commission of inquiry on Syria said.

“Such inaction has provided the space for the proliferation of actors in the Syrian Arab Republic, each pursuing its own agenda and contributing to the radicalisation and escalation of violence.”

Divided world powers have supported both sides in Syria’s three-year-old conflict and a diplomatic deadlock has exacerbated the bloodshed.

The independent investigators, led by Brazilian expert Paulo Pinheiro, said that fighters and their commanders may be held accountable for crimes, but also states which transfer weapons to Syria.

Syrian government forces under President Bashar Assad have besieged towns including the old city of Homs, shelling relentlessly and depriving them of food as part of a “starvation until submission” campaign, the report said.

It said the Syrian air force had dropped barrel bombs on Aleppo with “shocking intensity”, killing hundreds of civilians and injuring many more.

Insurgents fighting to topple Assad, especially foreign Islamic fighters including Al Qaeda affiliated ISIS, have stepped up attacks on civilians, taken hostages, executed prisoners and set off car bombs to spread terror, it said.

The 75-page report, covering July 15-January  20, is the seventh by the United Nations since the inquiry was set up in September 2011, six months after the anti-Assad revolt began.

The investigators have not been allowed into Syria, but their latest findings were based on 563 interviews conducted by Skype or by telephone with victims and witnesses still in the country or in person with refugees in surrounding countries.

Four lists of suspects

All sides have violated the rules of war embodied in the Geneva Conventions, according to the team of two dozen who include former UN war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte.

It has now drawn up four confidential lists of suspects.

Despite some tactical gains by Syrian government forces backed by more foreign combat forces of Lebanese Hizbollah and Iraqi militia, the fighting has reached a stalemate, causing significant casualties and material losses, the report said.

“The government relied extensively on the superior firepower of its air force and artillery, while non-state armed groups increasingly resorted to methods of asymmetric warfare, such as suicide bombs and use of improved explosive devices.”

As part of a strategy aimed at weakening the insurgents and breaking the will of their popular base, government forces have besieged and bombarded civilian areas, it said.

“Partial sieges aimed at expelling armed groups turned into tight blockades that prevented the delivery of basic supplies, including food and medicine, as part of a ‘starvation until submission’ campaign.”

Rebels throughout Syria have “inflicted severe physical or mental pain or suffering on civilian populations in areas under their control”, including on prisoners, it said.

Referring to the northern area of Raqqa that is under control of an Al  Qaeda affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the report said: “The acts committed by non-state armed groups ... in areas under their control against the civilian population constitute torture and inhuman treatment as a war crime and, in the context of [Raqqa], as a crime against humanity.”

Rebels have encircled Nubl and Zahra, besieging 45,000 people in the two Shiite towns in Aleppo province, it said.

“The siege is imposed by groups affiliated to the Islamic Front, Jaish Al Mujahedeen, Jabhat Al Nusra and the Syrian Revolutionary Front by checkpoints erected around the area and by cutting off their electrical and water supply lines.”

The war, which enters its fourth year next week, has become “deeply fragmented and localised”, with multiple front lines involving different parties with shifting priorities, according to the report.

Kurdish forces in northeastern provinces were fighting radical Islamic armed groups in a “distinct sub-conflict”.

Thousands of foreign fighters have joined the fighting, fuelling the sectarian dimension of the conflict that threatens to destabilise the wider region, the investigators said.

War crimes had been committed on both sides, including torture, massacres, rapes and recruitment of child soldiers.

“Government forces are conducting a sniper campaign in Bustan Al Qasr [Aleppo]. On one day alone in October, doctors treated five men shot in the groin. The same month, six pregnant women were shot in the abdomen,” the report said.

On the rebel side, a 26-year-old man was detained on the ground of his sexual orientation in October 2013. “He was beaten and hung by his arms from a ceiling by ISIS in Raqqa. On October 31, a school headmistress was publicly lashed by ISIS in Raqqa for not wearing a hijab [Islamic head covering].”

RIYADH/DOHA — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar on Wednesday in an unprecedented public split between Gulf Arab allies who have fallen out over the role of Islamists in a region in turmoil.

Qatar’s Cabinet voiced “regret and surprise” at the decision by the fellow-members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), but said Doha would not pull out its own envoys and that it remained committed to GCC security and stability.

The Saudi-led trio said they had acted because Qatar failed to honour a GCC agreement signed on November 23 not to back “anyone threatening the security and stability of the GCC whether as groups or individuals — via direct security work or through political influence, and not to support hostile media”.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are fuming especially over Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement whose political ideology challenges the principle of dynastic rule.

They also resent the way Doha has sheltered influential Brotherhood cleric Yusuf Qaradawi and given him regular airtime on its pan-Arab satellite television channel Al Jazeera.

The GCC, which normally keeps its disputes under wraps, is a pro-Western alliance of monarchies set up in the 1980s to counter Iranian influence in the Gulf, and includes several of the world’s biggest producers and exporters of oil and gas.

Kuwait and Oman did not join the diplomatic rebuke to Qatar. Kuwait’s Parliament Speaker Marzouq Al Ghanim said he was concerned by its implications. Oman has not commented.

Saudi Arabia, the biggest GCC state by population, size and economy, has grown increasingly frustrated in recent years by the efforts of Qatar, a country of just two million, to leverage its large wealth from gas exports into regional clout.

Qatar’s stock market tumbled 2.3 per cent after Wednesday’s announcement. There is significant cross-border investment in the stock markets of GCC countries by investors from other GCC nations. Saudi investors play a major role in all GCC markets.

Saudi Arabia has tried for two years to align the foreign and security policies of Sunni-ruled GCC states to combat what it sees aggression by Shiite Iran, its regional arch-rival.

Gulf analysts and diplomats say it is too early to say if the rift with Qatar will break the GCC apart, pointing to previous rows between member states that were later settled.

Challenge for ruler

Qatar has been a maverick in the conservative Gulf region, backing Islamist movements in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere that are viewed with suspicion or hostility by some GCC members.

The latest ruckus is a challenge for Qatar’s youthful new ruler, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, who suggested when he succeeded his father in June that he would pursue Doha’s assertive, independent-minded foreign policy.

Saudi and other Gulf Arab officials, as well as Egypt’s military-backed rulers often complain about Al Jazeera, which they see as openly pro-Brotherhood and critical of their own governments. Al Jazeera says it is an independent news service giving a voice to everyone in the Middle East.

Three Al Jazeera journalists are in jail in Egypt, accused of helping a terrorist organisation — code for the Brotherhood.

Egyptian airport sources said on Wednesday Qatari citizens would be subject to extra security screening measures “to make sure they are not involved in hostile acts against Egypt, either through the media or business”.

An Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman, Badr Abdelatty, expressed understanding for the withdrawal of ambassadors, saying Qatar must “move away from policies and positions that fuel division and the fragmentation of Arab unity”.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain said they had acted after GCC foreign ministers meeting in Riyadh on Tuesday had failed to persuade Qatar to implement the November 23 accord.

Qatar suggested the move stemmed from displeasure over its actions beyond the Gulf, for example in Syria and Egypt, where it has backed groups opposed to the Saudi government.

It said the action “had nothing to do with the interests, security and stability of GCC peoples but rather a difference in positions on issues external to the Gulf Cooperation Council”.

Qatar, which also backed Libyan rebels who toppled Muammar Qadhafi, says it supports Arab people against oppression.

A source close to the Saudi government said pressure on Qatar would continue until it changed its policies. “They have to divert their position on many issues and we are waiting for real signs of this, not just talk.”

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli navy seized a ship in the Red Sea on Wednesday that was carrying dozens of advanced Iranian-supplied rockets made in Syria and intended for Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip, the military said.

The disclosure came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the United States to press his case for tougher international action against Iran over its disputed nuclear programme and support for Islamist groups.

The Panamanian-flagged cargo vessel Klos C was boarded in international waters without resistance from its 17-strong crew in a “complex, covert operation”, military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner told reporters.

Lerner said dozens of M302 rockets were found aboard the Klos C, a weapon which could have struck deep into Israel from Gaza and would have significantly enhanced the firepower of the Palestinian enclave’s Hamas rulers and other armed factions.

“The M302 in its most advanced model can strike over 100 miles, and if they would have reached Gaza, ultimately that would have meant millions of Israelis under threat,” he said.

Hamas dismissed the Israeli announcement as a “silly joke”.

“This is a new Israeli lie aimed to justify and prolong the blockade of Gaza,” said Taher Al Nono, an adviser of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

There was no immediate comment from Iran or Syria.

Military footage showed the Israeli navy chief, Admiral Ram Rothberg, inspecting a rocket on the floor of a ship hold, with cement bags labelled “Made in Iran” in English next to it.

Lerner said the rockets were flown from Syria to Iran, from where they were shipped first to Iraq and then towards Sudan. Had they reached the African coast, they would have probably been smuggled overland through Egypt to Gaza, he said.

Nic Jenzen-Jones, an Australia-based military arms specialist and director of Armament Research Services, said most reports indicated the Syrian-produced rockets had a 90 to 100km range.

“Several Israeli assessments of these rockets have questioned their reliability,” he said. “[Lebanese Shia group] Hizbollah has made use of these rockets, and Hamas is believed to be attempting to stockpile longer-range rocket systems.”

Israel and Islamist Hamas last fought a major conflict in November 2012. Hamas has largely held fire since but Israel says it has been trying to build up its capabilities. That has been made difficult, however, by a new military regime in Cairo which has cracked down on the Egyptian border with Gaza.

Netanyahu’s office said that the prime minister, who was in Los Angeles on Wednesday after holding a White House meeting and addressing a pro-Israel lobby in Washington, had approved the ship seizure after consultations with his security chiefs.

JUBA — Heavy fighting broke out in the main military barracks in war-torn South Sudan’s capital Juba on Wednesday, underscoring serious tensions within the national army as it battles a rebel uprising.

An AFP reporter said the sound of heavy gunfire was heard coming from the main barracks near Juba University, home to the presidential guards and other elite troops, from 9:30 am (0630 GMT), with the shooting ending two hours later.

According to independent Tamazuj radio, the fighting started after soldiers argued with a military pay committee. It said several people were dead, but there was no immediate confirmation of the number of casualties and the army could not be reached for comment.

The US embassy in Juba issued a statement advising people to stay indoors, and a diplomatic source in the city cited reports of five to seven soldiers killed in the clashes.

“We are trying to establish what happpened, although it seems that troops who have not been paid went to the barracks to help themselves,” the diplomat said.

However there were unconfirmed reports in other local media that the fighting broke out between guards loyal to President Salva Kiir and a commando unit under General Gatwech Gai.

The conflict in South Sudan started in the capital Juba and under similar circumstances nearly three months ago amid tensions within the ruling party of President Kiir and former vice president Riek Machar.

The December 15 clashes, which spilt the army along ethnic lines, quickly spread across the country.

Since the initial week of fighting in Juba, the capital has been largely calm and key installations have been guarded by Ugandan troops who have intervened in the conflict in support of President Kiir.

Fighting between the national army and the rebels — made up of defectors and ethnic militia — has been centered around the towns of Bor, Malakal and Bentiu further north.

The unrest in South Sudan, the world’s newest nation which won independence from Khartoum in 2011, has left thousands dead and has displaced close to 900,000 people, including tens of thousands who have crammed into UN bases in fear of ethnic attacks.

The government and rebels signed a ceasefire on January 23, but the truce has seen frequent violations — including a rebel assault on Malakal.

In neighbouring Ethiopia, regional bloc IGAD — which has been trying to broker peace talks aimed at addressing the root causes of the conflict — said efforts to resolve the conflict were making progress, albeit very marginal.

“What has been going on for the last two weeks was in short can be characterised as talks about talks,” IGAD special envoy Seyoum Mesfin told reporters.

BAGHDAD — Nine bombings mainly targeting Shiite-majority areas of Baghdad killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens more on Wednesday, officials said, as Iraq suffers its worst violence in years.

The country has been hit by a year-long surge in bloodshed that has reached levels not seen since 2008, driven by widespread discontent among its Sunni Arab minority and by the bloody civil war in neighbouring Syria.

The seven car bombs and two roadside bombs, which struck in six different areas of Baghdad, also wounded more than 70 people, the officials said.

One car bomb exploded near the University of Technology in the Karrada district of central Baghdad, killing three people and wounding at least 10.

“The terrorist was planning to blow up the car on the main road near the university,” but instead left it on a side street as security forces do not allow cars to stop there, a police officer at the scene said.

While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, Sunni jihadists often target members of Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority, whom they consider to be apostates.

The Baghdad blasts came a day after suicide bombers attacked the city council headquarters in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and took employees hostage.

Another bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle after police and anti-Al Qaeda militiamen arrived at the scene, while the two inside the building also blew themselves up after exchanging fire with security forces.

The violence, which showcased the impunity with which militants can strike even targets that should be highly secure, killed six people and wounded 46.

Powerful militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which operates in both Iraq and Syria, claimed the attack in a statement posted on the Honein jihadist forum.

CAIRO — Egypt’s state news agency says that the trial of three Al Jazeera English journalists and 17 other defendants on terrorism charges has been adjourned until March 24.

The agency reported that one Egyptian defendant, Mohamed Fahmy, told the judge in Wednesday’s hearing he could “never possibly betray his country.”

The Al Jazeera journalists face charges accusing them of joining a terrorist group, aiding a terrorist group, and endangering national security. Authorities accuse Al-Jazeera of being a platform for ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi’s supporters. The network denies that, saying its journalists were only doing their jobs.

Those arrested include Fahmy, Al Jazeera English’s acting bureau chief who is an Egyptian-Canadian; Australian award-winning correspondent Peter Greste and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed. All have pleaded not guilty.

CAIRO — A government-appointed panel said on Wednesday that the deaths of hundreds of Muslim Botherhood supporters at a protest camp in Cairo last August was mostly the fault of demonstrators who had provoked the security forces into opening fire.

It found that 632 people were killed, 624 of them civilians in one of the bloodiest days in Egypt’s modern history.

But the protesters had brought it upon themselves as armed men within their ranks had shot first at the security forces and also used civilians as human shields, it said.

The findings mainly echoed the military-backed government’s version of events. But in an unusual move, the panel also placed some responsibility for the bloodshed on the security forces and said they had used disproptionate force.

The mass killings took place when the security forces moved to dismantle the protest camps set up by supporters of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, who was overthrown by the army six weeks earlier after demonstrations against his rule.

Security forces then mounted a harsh crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood Movement.

The commission’s findings, announced at a news conference on Wednesday, were the most detailed official account of the dispersal of Brotherhood supporters who had camped around the Rabaa Al Adawiya Mosque in northeast Cairo for weeks — a flashpoint in the struggle between the Islamist movement and the new army-backed government.

During a weeks-long standoff, international mediators tried to persuade the government to avoid using force in Rabaa and escalating a political crisis. But hardliners prevailed.

Security forces, including snipers, stormed the camps on August 14, firing live ammunition under the cover of army helicopters. Bulldozers tore down tents which were set ablaze, witnesses said.

Protesters who survived the onslaught said police fired tear gas at children before shooting bullets at demonstrators attempting to flee.

The government called for an investigation after rights groups pressured authorities to set up a fact-finding committee as a first step towards accountability for the killings.

The panel said that in addition to the 632 deaths at Rabaa, 686 protesters were killed in clashes across Egypt in the three days following the violence in Cairo.

But its presentation focused on what it called violations by the pro-Morsi protesters. Panel member Nasser Amin accused the Morsi supporters of detaining and torturing civilians at the protest camps.

He said some protesters also carried arms and shot at security forces, causing them to fire back.

But most of the protesters were peaceful and some had been used as human shields by the gunmen, he said.

Amin also said security forces had contributed to the bloodshed. They had failed to secure safe passage for protesters after clashes erupted and did not give them enough time to flee.

The 25 minutes between warnings on loudspeakers and the assault by the security forces “was not enough for thousands of protesters to leave,” he said.

Protesters were deprived of life-saving aid because ambulances were not able to access the conflcit area, he said.

And contradicting past official accounts, Amin said security forces did not maintain proportional use of force when confronted with heavy gunfire from protesters.

The interior ministry has said that authorities did not use excessive force to scatter the camps and that Morsi’s supporters fired first.

Rabaa has become a symbol of the suppression of the Brotherhood, which has largely been driven underground since then. The government has declared it a terrorist group, arresting thousands of its members and putting Morsi and other leaders on trial.

VIENNA — Western powers pressed Iran on Wednesday to tackle suspicions that it may have worked on designing an atomic bomb and the United States said the issue would be central to the success of talks on a final settlement over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

At a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Washington and the European Union underlined their support for the UN watchdog’s efforts to investigate long-running allegations of possible nuclear arms research by Iran.

The IAEA inquiry is separate from but complementary to higher-level political talks between Iran and six world powers aimed at a deal on the overall scope of Tehran’s nuclear energy programme to ensure it cannot be diverted into bombmaking.

In potentially a significant advance for the IAEA’s probe, Tehran agreed last month to address one of many topics the UN agency wants answers on — the development of fast-acting detonators with both military and civilian applications.

But while this was welcomed by Western officials at the closed-door session of the IAEA’s 35-nation governing board in Vienna, they made clear the Islamic republic must do much more.

The US ambassador to the IAEA, Joseph Macmanus, said it remained critical for Iran to address substantively all international concerns about the so-called possible military dimensions (PMD) of the country’s nuclear programme.

A “satisfactory resolution of PMD issues will be critical to any long-term comprehensive solution to the Iranian nuclear issue”, Macmanus said, according to a copy of his statement.

He later told reporters: “It is a central element to this negotiation, and all parties recognise that.”

The 28-nation European Union voiced a similar line in its statement: “We urge Iran to cooperate fully with the agency regarding PMD issues, and to provide the agency with access to all people, documents and sites requested.”

Iran denies Western allegations that it is seeking to develop the capability to make atomic arms, saying its nuclear programme is a peaceful project to produce electricity.

“In our view, those claims are baseless and we haven’t received any substantiated document in that regard,” Iranian Ambassador Reza Najafi told a news conference. “However, we continue to work with the agency trying to remove ambiguities.”

Also in Vienna on Wednesday, experts from Iran and the powers — the United States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and Britain — began a meeting to prepare for the next round of political-level talks on March 17 in the Austrian capital.

Diplomats said Russia took part in the discussions, suggesting no apparent immediate fallout in the Iran negotiations because of the crisis over Ukraine.

“The overriding commitment is one of working together to resolve the Iran nuclear programme and there are many other issues in the world that will continue to cause us to have disagreements and debates and sometimes to find ourselves in opposition to one another,” Macmanus said when asked whether tensions over Ukraine could disrupt the Iran talks.

A senior Iranian official said: “Iran would surely stay out of this dispute [over Ukraine]. A neutral position of Iran would be enough to prevent harming the upcoming talks.”

Iran and the powers are aiming to build on a breakthrough deal reached late last year in Geneva under which Tehran agreed to curb parts of its nuclear programme in exchange for some easing of sanctions that are battering its economy.

The six-month agreement focused mainly on preventing Tehran obtaining nuclear fissile material to assemble a future bomb, rather than on whether Iran sought to develop nuclear weapons technology in the past, which the IAEA is investigating.

Western diplomats and nuclear experts say the IAEA needs to carry out its inquiry to establish what happened and to be able to provide assurances that any “weaponisation” work — expertise to turn fissile material into a functioning bomb — has ceased.

But it is unclear to what extent it will form part of any long-term accord between Iran and the powers — which unlike the IAEA can lift crippling sanctions on the major oil producer and, therefore, have more leverage in dealing with Tehran.

Israel, believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed power, has branded the Geneva deal an “historic mistake” as it did not require Iran to dismantle its uranium enrichment sites.

Israel’s envoy to the IAEA attacked what she described “as the new Iranian tactic, to present a pretense of cooperation, while limiting its agreement to the more marginal issues”.

“This proves that Iran has a reason to continue and hide its clandestine activities related to the development of a nuclear weapon,” Israeli Ambassador Merav Zafary-Odiz said.

Iran says it is Israel’s assumed atomic arsenal that threatens peace and stability in the volatile Middle East.