Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani promised that Tehran would cooperate with United Nations inspectors, in a meeting late on Thursday in Vienna with UN atomic agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
”The discussion was that of course Iran is continuing its cooperation with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and that inspectors will continue their work in accordance with the NPT [nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] comprehensive safeguards,” Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told Agence France-Presse on Friday.
Iran is honouring its NPT safeguards obligations, which mandate the IAEA to verify that nuclear material is not being diverted from peaceful uses.
But it has cut off wider inspections, such as visits to sites not directly linked to the presence of nuclear material.
It did this after the IAEA in February referred Tehran to the UN Security Council due to concern over Iran’s nuclear programme, which the United States charges is a cover for secret development of atomic weapons.
IAEA officials have said this severely limits their ability to monitor nuclear activities in Iran.
Larijani’s visit came as the European Union is readying a package of trade, technology and security benefits in return for Iran guaranteeing that its nuclear programme is peaceful.
The EU and the US want the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran if the Islamic republic rejects this package, which the five permanent Security Council nations plus Germany are to finalise at a meeting next Wednesday in London.
Iran has already rejected what is expected to be yet another call on it to stop uranium enrichment, the process that can produce either fuel for nuclear power reactors or the explosive core of atom bombs.
The Security Council had on March 29 asked Iran to honour IAEA calls for the Islamic Republic to suspend its enrichment work and also to cooperate fully with an over-three-year-old IAEA investigation, which is still unable to determine whether the Iranian nuclear programme is peaceful or weapons-related.
IAEA spokesperson Marc Vidricaire said Larijanai and ElBaradei had ”talks about the usual things, issues that are still unanswered and, of course, the requirements of the [IAEA] board [of governors] to provide some confidence-building matters”.
”The purpose of the meeting was really to discuss the remaining unanswered questions regarding Iran’s past [nuclear] programme and the request by the board for confidence-building measures,” Vidricaire said.
He did not provide details. — AFP
