TEHRAN, 13 April 2004 — Five UN nuclear inspectors arrived yesterday to try to confirm whether Iran has stopped building and assembling centrifuges and get answers to a number of outstanding questions that have raised concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. Muhammad Saeedi, a top Iranian nuclear official, told The Associated Press the experts from the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency arrived for a series of meetings and inspections.
The inspectors’ visit coincides with a hardening of position by Iranian radicals who have called on their government to defy the UN nuclear agency, expel UN inspectors and resume uranium enrichment. The Iranian government, though, appears determined to stick to a more moderate approach in hopes of avoiding international isolation.
The United States and other nations accuse Iran of having a covert nuclear weapons program and are pushing the United Nations to impose sanctions. Saeedi said that to win “greater international trust,” Iran stopped building and assembling centrifuges on Friday, as it promised during a one-day visit last week by IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei.
