Nickelson welcomed the proposal, Mohammadreza Eslamlu, a close friend to Ahmadinejad’s art advisor, told the Persian service of Fars News Agency on Saturday.

“Since we think a fresh and accurate portrayal of Iran and Shia should be provided to the world at present, we have asked Michelle Nickelson to make the documentary,” said Eslamlu.

“Under the present circumstances in which we live, Islam, particularly Shia, increasingly has come under attack by the Western media. Thus, it is a good opportunity for us to ask her to travel to Iran in order to become familiar with the truth about Shia and the culture of Mahdaviat and then to introduce them to the rest of the world,” he added.

Eslamlu lamented over the work of Christiane Amanpour, CNN chief international correspondent, who produced a three-part series “God’s Warriors”, in which she considers the rise of religious fundamentalism as a political force in the world.

Her team ventured to several countries in the Middle East including Iran for the documentary.

“She never presented an accurate image of Iran in ‘God’s Warriors’, moreover, it is absolutely against the culture of Mahdaviat and Shia,” Eslamlu noted.

“By means of this proposal to Nickelson, we intend to correct this inaccurate and distorted image,” he stated.

He expressed hope that the project would begin as soon as the new administration of the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance makes the preliminary arrangements for production.

The screenplay must be approved by the Culture Ministry to obtain a production license in Iran.

The president and chief operating officer of Nickelson Entertainment Group/Mirage, Nickelson was to make “We the People of the Islamic Republic of Iran”, a documentary about the Iranian presidential election in June.

However, she could not make the documentary because of post-election unrest in Iran.

Eslamlu had been assigned by Ahmadinejad’s art advisor, Javad Shamaqdari, to accompany Nickelson in making the documentary.

Demanding that Iran sign or implement the protocol is a violation of international law, although Iran voluntarily implemented the protocol for more than 30 months, Soltanieh stated in a letter to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.

Soltanieh also stated that Iran has answered all questions and cleared up all ambiguities about its nuclear activities, and thus the implementation of the nuclear safeguards agreement in Iran must take a normal course. In his letter, the Iranian envoy also accused the United States of feeding “forged” intelligence to the IAEA that claims Iran had studied ways to make atomic bombs.

In its report on August 28, the agency asked Iran to provide answers about the “alleged weapons studies”.

In the letter, Soltanieh told ElBaradei that the agency had not provided genuine documents on the alleged studies and the matter was “closed”.

“The government of the United States has not handed over original documents to the agency since it does not in fact have any authenticated document and all it has are forged documents,” Soltanieh wrote as carried by Reuters.

“The alleged studies are politically motivated and baseless allegations.”

Soltanieh also accused Britain, France, and the United States of trying to derail the IAEA’s technical mandate by piling political pressure on ElBaradei.

He also complained that Iranian cooperation with the IAEA had been overshadowed.

Tehran allowed IAEA inspectors to revisit a heavy-water reactor site last month after barring access for a year.

The envoy also thanked the IAEA for resisting ‘political pressure’ by certain Western countries over Tehran’s nuclear dossier.

Iran, along with many other member states, shares the view that the IAEA ‘resisted the political pressure’ by a few Western countries trying to derail the agency from its ‘professional technical mandate’, he wrote.

Soltanieh also said Tehran trusts the UN nuclear watchdog as the ‘sole pertinent international technical organization’ in charge of nuclear activities.

After the release of his latest report, ElBaradei was harshly criticized by Israel, which claimed that the IAEA was holding back information about Iran’s nuclear program.

In an interview with the Chicago-based magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published on Tuesday, ElBaradei dismissed the claims and said what some countries called the threat from Iran ‘has been hyped’ in many ways.

PA/HG

END

MNA

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