Earlier this month Dr Condoleezza Rice voiced concern over Iran's  nuclear  programme wherever she went. The job must have been really taxing since she was asking for something that has not happened and is not likely to happen either, and in the end her attempts to raise a storm in a tea cup failed.

She was clearly not very successful in Russia. Speaking to reporters after discussing the issue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Rice had starkly different takes on the specific question of whether the Islamic Republic should be allowed to enrich uranium for any purpose. Lavrov said, "All members of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have this right."

He further added that Russia had seen no evidence to support US claims that Iran sought to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear energy programme. Rice was close at heals and retorted, "It is not a question of rights... the NPT doesn't come only with rights but also with obligations.

This is not an issue of rights but of whether or not the fuel cycle can be trusted in Iran." Although both only reiterated their stated positions, the spectacle of Lavrov and Rice arguing over the specific point of the enrichment process was an unusual occurrence.

In any case, Russia has certainly raised its stature as a responsible regional power overseeing international geo-politics to safeguard the peace, stability and security of the region.

While on her whirlwind tour to Europe and the Middle East in February  this year, her first overseas tour as US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice repeatedly said that "Iran cannot have nuclear capability" and called on Europe to show "unity of purpose" with Washington in opposing Iran's nuclear programme. At many capitals she repeatedly said that "Iran is a  destabilising force in the international system" because it "supports terrorism".

How? God only knows. US allegations that Iran is a sponsor of terrorism have never been proven. By implication, such claims hint at an agenda beyond the denuclearisation of Iran; the 'crying wolf' policy shrouds the hidden agenda of regime change. The world is fed up with this diabolical chain of US propaganda against Iran. The world was safer before Mr Bush moved into the White House.

Nowhere in the NPT itself, as well as the additional protocol signed by Teheran in 2003 which is still to be ratified by the Iranian parliament, is it forbidden to produce fuel for nuclear reactors. Iran's claim that the fuel cycle is a legitimate right of every member of the IAEA, and that cessation would be tantamount to discrimination, is fully supported by the NPT.

The arbitrary reinterpretation of the NPT on the part of the West helps nobody and brings us closer to a world crisis. Further, it needs to be worked out who has the right to interpret the treaty.

The enormity of the distortion involved in the West's objection to Iran developing nuclear capability is magnified when we know that in its neighbourhood a nuclear Israel with around 300 nuclear warheads is not even asked to sign the NPT and open its nuclear site to the IAEA. No amount of justification, for whatever reason, can make the West's stand on the Middle East nuclear issue plausible.

On September 30, the IAEA at a 139-member general conference rejected an Arab call to denounce Israel as a nuclear threat in the region, but did call for a nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East. Egyptian ambassador Ramzy Ezzeldeiin Ramzy told the IAEA conference that the NWFZ resolution invites Israel "to join the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and to accept that its various facilities are subject to the IAEA safeguards system."

In response, the world community received the brazen reply from Israeli atomic energy chief Gideon Frank that Israel advocated "achieving regional peace and security, not arms control per se." Presently Israel is the only country in the region that possesses nuclear warheads and has refused to sign the NPT. One is wonderstruck why the IAEA has been so passive on this issue and has not done anything substantial to neutralise Israel's nuclear threat to the region.

The only way out of the present nuclear quagmire in the Middle East is that the US and the West should scale down their demands against Iran's nuclear programme to the dictates of the law and spirit of the NPT, which allows uranium enrichment for nuclear reactor fuel. However, if the West fears that Iran is seeking the 'option' to enrich to weapons-grade levels, a mechanism should be evolved to ensure that all enrichment activities remain restricted to civilian purposes.

This is the job of the IAEA, quite emboldened after receiving the Nobel  Prize, and no other country or agency should politicise the issue by interfering in its work.