VIENNA/TEHRAN, 7 June 2003 — The United Nations nuclear watchdog agency has accused Iran of failing to comply with its nuclear safeguards agreement, according to a confidential report obtained by Reuters yesterday. But the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ahead of a meeting of the agency’s board of governors said Iran was taking steps to rectify the situation.
The report, to be presented by IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei to the governors on June 16, will be closely read by the United States, which accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the guise of building electricity-generating reactors.
But Tehran rejected the charge from the UN nuclear watchdog it failed to honor its nuclear safeguards agreement, pledging it had “answers” for all the agency’s criticisms.
“We have done nothing which would violate our commitments regarding the NPT,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi told AFP by telephone. According to a partial copy of a report obtained by AFP, the IAEA said Iran had “failed to meet its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with respect to the reporting of nuclear material, the subsequent processing and use of that material and the declaration of facilities where the material was stored and processed.”
Hawks in US President George W. Bush’s administration have recently hardened rhetoric against Iran since the US-led war on Iraq, raising the specter of US military action. Washington, which last year named Iran as part of an “axis of evil” with Iraq and North Korea, denies any plan to attack the country.
“Iran has failed to meet its obligations under its safeguards agreement with respect to the reporting of nuclear material, the subsequent processing and use of that material and the declaration of facilities where that material was stored and processed,” the report read. It was unclear what the nuclear material was and how exactly it was processed. The IAEA declined to comment on the quote from the report when contacted by Reuters.
Assefi defended Tehran’s record. “We have answers for all the points mentioned in this news. We have done nothing which violates our commitments,” the spokesman told Reuters.
The report said Iran imported 1.8 tons of natural uranium in 1991 but not declared the import or facilities for handling it to the IAEA until this year. It said this amount of uranium could yield 0.13 kg of enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.
Russia, meanwhile, brushed aside new US charges that Iran could be secretly developing a nuclear weapon and vowed yesterday to press ahead with plans to help Tehran build its first nuclear reactor. “The position of the United States in relation to Iran generally... differs from ours,” Georgy Mamedov, a deputy foreign minister, said in a newspaper interview in Moscow.
“The Americans are in favor of isolating Iran. But we are in favor of cooperation with it, of course within the framework of international agreements,” Mamedov told the daily Vremya Novostei.
His blunt comments contrasted with attempts by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bush to play down their differences on the Iran nuclear question and confirmed that the issue remained a major irritant in relations.
