TEHRAN, 1 July 2003 — Iran said yesterday it would invite UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohammed El-Baradei to Tehran for talks shortly but rebuffed British calls for it to sign up immediately to tougher inspections of its nuclear facilities.
The International Atomic Energy Agency earlier this month reprimanded Iran for repeated failure to report on nuclear material, facilities and activities and called on it to sign a document allowing more intrusive, short-notice inspections of nuclear sites.
“Iran is going to invite El-Baradei soon to visit Iran to hold talks to remove technical problems,” Hassan Rohani, secretary-general of the Supreme National Security Council, told visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, the official IRNA news agency reported.
El-Baradei told an IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna earlier this month that IAEA officials intended to visit Iran “in a few weeks’ time” for technical discussions.
He said the agency was particularly interested in discussing the scale of Iran’s uranium enrichment program.
Straw urged Iran to sign up to an IAEA Additional Protocol, permitting tougher inspections, immediately and unconditionally.
Failure to do so would damage international confidence in Iran and could jeopardize a possible trade agreement between Tehran and the European Union, he said.
Iranian officials appeared unmoved by Straw’s warnings. While saying they had not ruled out signing the Additional Protocol, they insisted Iran should also be allowed access to Western technology to develop nuclear energy.
“Iran accepts cooperation with the IAEA but raises the question of why the members (of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) have not helped Iran in this respect,” President Mohammad Khatami told Straw yesterday, state television said.
