September 24, 2003	Wednesday	Rajab 26, 1424

VIENNA, Sept 23: The UN nuclear watchdog is to send its first inspection team to Iran on Friday (Sept 26) since imposing an Oct 31 deadline on Tehran to prove it is not secretly developing nuclear weapons, a spokeswoman said.

“The first mission is leaving on Friday and what will follow will be a lot of talks and inspections,” Melissa Fleming said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had on Sept 12 imposed the deadline on Iran, also urging it to suspend enriching uranium which the United States claims could be used to make nuclear bombs.

Iranian atomic energy agency chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh on Sept 15 told an IAEA conference in Vienna that Iran remained fully committed to cooperating with the agency and honouring the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), despite its objections to being handed a deadline.

But Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, said in a newspaper report in Tehran on Monday that Iran had so far “cooperated beyond the (current nuclear anti-proliferation) accords and allowed the taking of (environmental) samples and inspections of non-nuclear sites”.

Mr Salehi said that in the future Iran would go no further than its commitments under the NPT, “while completing what has been embarked upon”.

He said Iran would continue talks with the IAEA on signing an additional protocol to allow IAEA inspectors to make surprise visits to suspect sites.

Melissa Fleming said the IAEA had “received nothing officially” from Tehran in the line of Mr Salehi’s comments and was “moving forward with a very detailed and intense plan of work.”

“This plan has been submitted to Iran so they are fully aware of what is required from their side and also from the work that the IAEA needs to do over this next period until Oct 31,” Ms Fleming said.—AFP