TEHRAN, 28 July 2003 — Iran’s representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency advised his government yesterday to agree to no-notice inspections of its nuclear facilities and said he hoped the additional protocol permitting them will be signed by September. Ali Akbar Salehi is the first Iranian official to openly endorse the idea of Iran signing the additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, although the decision is not in his hands.
The treaty was “not conceived just for Iran or Third World countries and sooner or later all IAEA member states will have to sign up,” Salehi told the government daily Iran. “I hope that we can overcome the problem by the next IAEA board of governors meeting in September through the measures that top officials are going to take in the coming month,” Salehi said, adding that he felt “confident”.
Salehi rejected concerns among hardliners in Iran that the additional protocol would allow IAEA inspectors to meddle in Iranian internal affairs and said it would ease international pressure on the Islamic regime. “We are currently in a situation in which the protocol can help us settle some problems and close the political file opened on our nuclear activities,” he said in reference to US-led criticism.
Earlier this month, European Union foreign ministers expressed “increasing concern” over Iran’s nuclear program and demanded Iran’s unconditional acceptance of the additional NPT protocol. Salehi warned there was a real danger the IAEA might refer Iran’s case to the UN Security Council, as threatened by the regime’s archenemy, the United States.
Salehi’s remarks were challenged yesterday by Mohammad Reza Bahonar, a senior conservative figure and member of the Expediency Council arbitration body, who said that countries which had signed the additional protocol “regretted it, because of the danger it poses to national security”.
“We will never sign anything that goes against our independence,” Bahonar wrote in the Ressalat daily.
