March 18, 2003	Tuesday	Muharram 14, 1424

VIENNA, March 17: The chief of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said on Monday Iran has nearly completed the uranium enrichment plant at the centre of US accusations that Tehran wants to develop nuclear weapons and was working on another.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei did not respond to repeated US accusations that Iran’s nuclear programme was intended to develop the capacity to build nuclear weapons in the text of his comments prepared for the board after an inspection trip to Iran last month.

“My colleagues and I were able to visit a number of facilities — including a gas centrifuge enrichment pilot plant at Natanz that is nearly ready for operation, and a much larger enrichment facility still under construction at the same site,” ElBaradei told the agency’s board.

ElBaradei reiterated his call to Iran to help dispel doubts about its nuclear ambitions by signing up to the IAEA’s “Additional Protocol” which would allow inspectors freer access to Iran’s nuclear sites with little prior warning.

Iran has unveiled details of an ambitious nuclear energy programme, from mining uranium ore to managing the spent fuel from atomic reactors.

The Islamic Republic has said it wants to be generating 6,000 MW of electricity from atomic power plants by 2022 to meet the growing energy demand of its 65 million population.

OIL REFINERIES: Iran does not intend to close its oil refineries during a possible war in Iraq, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh was quoted as saying.

“There is no plan to close the refineries near the border in case of a war,” Zangeneh said, cited in local press reports.

Iran has eight oil refineries, four close to the Iraqi border in the southwest.—Reuters/AFP