US Steps Up Spying on Turkey, Brazil: Report Reminder

The US spy agencies have intensified their intelligence operations against Turkey and Brazil after the two countries adopted independent policies towards Iran's nuclear standoff with the West.

According to a report by the US-based prominent investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, which dates back to May 2010, the US intelligence agencies have set in motion new intelligence operations against Turkey and Brazil after the two countries frowned upon Washington's policies concerning the Islamic Republic's peaceful nuclear program, a PressTV reported.

Madsen pointed to widespread assumptions by Washington that Brazil and Turkey had clandestinely held talks with China and Russia in an effort to form an alliance to veto the latest UN Security Council sanctions resolution against Iran.

Although the US-engineered anti-Iran sanctions resolution passed the UN Security Council (UNSC), Brazil and Turkey took the rare move to vote against it, with Lebanon abstaining from the vote.

According to remarks by senior Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, there were other members of the UNSC that privately expressed reservations about voting for the Western-backed anti-Iran measure and that the pressure of adverse action against their country was too costly for them to ignore.

The reminder on the report comes as Iran has recently invited representatives and ambassadors from different countries to inspect its nuclear facilities in yet another effort to demonstrate its goodwill and transparency of its nuclear program.

Iran, Brazil and Turkey issued a joint nuclear swap declaration on May 17, based on which Tehran agrees to exchange 1,200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium with higher-enriched fuel on Turkish soil for its Tehran research reactor.

Under the declaration, Turkey, as the custodian of Iran's uranium, makes the commitment to return Iran's uranium in case potential suppliers refuse to provide Iran with the fuel it requires within a reasonable time period.

at the time, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the then Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, called on the world powers to support the Tehran Declaration on swap of nuclear fuel, and voiced their strong opposition to the US-backed talks about imposing new UN sanctions against Tehran.