Iran: The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog called on Iran yesterday to accept strict inspection of its atomic programme to help dispel fears that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons, as Washington alleges.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board members have received copies of a harsh report on Iran by agency chief Dr Mohammed ElBaradei and will discuss it during a board meeting this week.
"The report points out that Iran has failed to report certain nuclear material and activities, and that corrective actions are being taken in co-operation with the Iranian authorities," Dr ElBaradei told the board in a speech.
He urged Iran to sign an additional protocol with the IAEA granting inspectors wider access and more intrusive, short-notice inspections.
A spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation said Tehran might agree to sign it, but reiterated Iran's demands for access to nuclear technology in exchange.
"We have not yet decided about signing the additional protocol, but we are studying it with a positive view," spokesman Mr Khalil Mousavi said.
But Vienna-based diplomats interpreted Tehran as merely restating a position already rejected by the United States and some other countries.
"No state that entered into discussions with the IAEA on signing the additional protocol has done so on the basis of a bargaining arrangement," a senior Western diplomat said.
Without an additional protocol, the IAEA report said, "the agency's ability to provide credible assurances regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear activities is limited".
Of 188 signatories of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), 78 have approved the additional protocol and 32 have ratified it. Iran is a party to the NPT.
Mr Kenneth Brill, US ambassador to the UN in Vienna, told reporters the IAEA report was "serious, sobering and thorough".
"The board should speak with a very clear and firm voice in support of the agency's work and the need for Iran to answer the questions raised," Mr Brill said.
Iran has repeatedly rejected IAEA requests to take environmental samples at the Kalaye Electric Company, where parts for uranium-enriching centrifuges were built. The centrifuges could be used to make weapons-grade uranium. Undeclared enrichment experiments could be seen as a violation of the NPT. - (Reuters)