Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in Sarajevo on 26 April that his government expected positive and constructive treatment from Bosnia and Herzegovina regarding Iran's right to use nuclear energy.
Speaking after a diplomatic visit to Austria over the weekend, Mottaki was attempting to convince another temporary member of the United Nations Security Council not to support sanctions.
Mottaki was received separately by Bosnian presidency chairman Haris Silajdzic and Foreign Minister Sven Alkalaj.
Bosnia and Herzegovina's Security Council vote is decided by a tri-member presidency comprising a Muslim Bosniak, a Christian Orthodox Serb and a Catholic Croat. Bosnian Muslims feel grateful toward both the US and Iran for helping them during the war in the early 1990s.
Speaking to the press, the Iranian chief diplomat described his trip to Sarajevo as successful, saying constructive talks were held. He stressed the importance of relations between the two countries established during Bosnia's 1992-5 war.
Although Mottaki obviously wanted guarantees that Bosnia and Herzegovina would not vote for possible sanctions against Iran, a press release after his meeting with Silajdzic indicated that he did not receive such a promise. The same goes for Austria.
The press release quoted Silajdzic as saying that Bosnia and Herzegovina's strategic goal was membership of NATO and the European Union. The country "must see to those strategic interests," it said.
Moreover, the press release concluded that Bosnia and Herzegovina fully supports the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its decisions.
Mottaki told the press that Iran would not renounce its right to use nuclear energy and claimed that his country did not plan to make nuclear weapons or have any need for them.
Possible sanctions would not affect Iran's determination to proceed with nuclear in any way, he said, underlining that "the world can no longer function on the dictate applied in the 1960s and 1970s".
In a speech in Teheran on Monday (26 April), Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described the veto power held by the US and other permanent Security Council members as a "satanic tool".
