VIENNA/TEHRAN, 24 September 2003 — The UN nuclear watchdog is to send its first inspection team to Iran on Friday since imposing an Oct. 31 deadline on Tehran to prove it is not secretly developing nuclear weapons, a spokeswoman said. “The first mission is leaving on Friday and what will follow will be a lot of talks and inspections,” Melissa Fleming said in Vienna.

The International Atomic Energy Agency had on Sept. 12 imposed the deadline on Iran, also urging it to suspend enriching uranium which the United States claims could be used to make nuclear bombs.

Iranian atomic energy agency chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh on Sept. 15 told an IAEA conference in Vienna that Iran remained fully committed to cooperating with the agency and honoring the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, despite its objections to being handed a deadline.

But Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, said in a newspaper report in Tehran on Monday that Iran had so far “cooperated beyond the (current nuclear anti-proliferation) accords and allowed the taking of (environmental) samples and inspections of non-nuclear sites.”

Salehi said that in the future Iran would go no further than its commitments under the NPT, “while completing what has been embarked upon.” He said Iran would, however, continue talks with the IAEA on signing an additional protocol to allow IAEA inspectors to make surprise visits to suspect sites.

Fleming said the IAEA had “received nothing officially” from Tehran in the line of Salehi’s comments and was “moving forward with a very detailed and intense plan of work.”

“This plan has been submitted to Iran so they are fully aware of what is required from their side and also from the work that the IAEA needs to do over this next period until Oct. 31,” Fleming said. She said the IAEA investigation will include “environmental sampling and access and receiving information from their side.”

Meanwhile, an Iranian judge has charged an Intelligence Ministry interrogator with the “semi-intentional” murder of a Canadian journalist but dismissed charges against a second official, the state-run Iran newspaper said yesterday.

The death in custody of Zahra Kazemi in July caused a diplomatic dispute between Iran and Canada and has highlighted rivalries between Iranian hardliners who control the judiciary and the reformist-run Intelligence Ministry.

“One of the interrogators has been charged,” the paper reported, quoting a report from the Tehran prosecutor’s office.

A judge last month charged two Intelligence Ministry agents with complicity in the killing but the case was sent back by a more senior judge who demanded further investigation.

In revising his case, the first judge dropped charges against one of the accused but leveled the stronger charge against his colleague. The Intelligence Ministry denied one of its staff was behind Zahra’s death and said it would defend its agent.

“Because of the unjust indictment ... the Intelligence Ministry retains the right to pursue the case and get the charge against its industrious staff-member dropped,” the paper quoted an unnamed official as saying.

Iran’s judiciary initially said Kazemi, 54, a Montreal-based photographer of Iranian descent, died of a stroke after her arrest for taking photographs outside Tehran’s Evin prison.