TEHRAN, Feb 22: Iran refused to agree on Saturday to snap inspections by the UN atomic energy agency of nuclear facilities which have alarmed Washington, but agreed to promptly inform the Vienna-based watchdog if it decides to build any new ones.
But at a joint press conference with visiting International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei, Iran’s nuclear energy agency chief said the country was ready to further discuss the inspection issue.
“We assured Mr ElBaradei that all out activities are under IAEA control and we have left the door open for further discussions,” Gholamreza Aghazadeh said.
At the top of Mr ElBaradei’s agenda since his arrival on Friday was trying to convince Iran to sign the additional protocol to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), which allows for snap inspections of both declared and undeclared nuclear sites.
“This is not just about Iran, but for all countries,” ElBaradei said.
“As soon as the countries sign a NPT as well as the protocol, we can provide comprehensive assurance for those countries who have signed both protocols, but without the additional protocol, the assurance is less strong,” he added, alluding to possible secret nuclear weapons programs.
The European Union, whose 15 members have all signed the additional protocol, has urged Iran to come on board as well.
The United States, however, is only adopting an amended version which excludes “activities or locations of direct national security significance”.
The additional protocol, which has only 28 signatories, was drawn up in 1991 when the IAEA realized that Iraq, which like Iran is an NPT signatory, had a secret nuclear weapons program.
ElBaradei managed to extract a pledge that Iran would inform the IAEA of any decisions to build new nuclear power facilities.
“The Iranian government has agreed to provide the IAEA with all information over new sites as soon decisions are made for their creation,” said ElBaradei.
President Mohammed Khatami stressed following talks with ElBaradei the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.
“Iran is working under the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s rules and will continue to do so, the IAEA can visit our installations to verify this,” he said.
Following his arrival Friday ElBaradei and a team of IAEA experts visited the nuclear power station construction site at Natanz in central Iran, the Iranian atomic energy agency said. But he did not visit the Arak site southwest of Tehran as expected.
The US State Department has said it suspects the two sites are evidence of a covert attempt to produce fissile uranium for a nuclear weapons program.
President Khatami’s announcement on Feb 9 that Iran was mining new uranium deposits and planned to produce its own nuclear fuel raised the ire of Washington.
Until that point, Russia, under US pressure, had agreed with Iran to provide it with nuclear fuel and insisted that Tehran return all spent fuel as a condition for going ahead with the building of the Bushehr reactor, being built by Russia in southern Iran.—AFP