VIENNA, 7 November 2003 — The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rohani, will meet the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog chief in Vienna tomorrow, a UN official said, as Tehran moves to dispel concern over its nuclear plans.
Diplomats told Reuters yesterday the visit probably had to do with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed El-Baradei’s report on IAEA nuclear inspections in Iran, expected to be circulated among diplomats in Vienna next week.
They said there was also a chance Rohani would give El-Baradei a letter formally expressing Tehran’s intention to join a tough regime of short notice UN nuclear inspections.
An IAEA press official confirmed the visit, though he was unable to give details about the purpose of the visit. Rohani cancelled a planned trip to Moscow earlier this week, which analysts said was because Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was there at the time.
Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Iran would soon give the IAEA the letter stating its desire to sign the Additional Protocol to the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Tehran signed in 1970.
“The letter has been prepared and we are going to hand it over to the IAEA Secretariat,” Salehi told Reuters. “I would say it’s in days.” Speaking on condition on anonymity, diplomats said it was possible Rohani would deliver the letter tomorrow, but added that Iran would more likely hand it over immediately before the Nov. 20 IAEA board meeting.
The Additional Protocol would give the IAEA access to, and the right to conduct snap inspections of both declared and undeclared sites in Iran. Iran must give the IAEA the letter before the IAEA board meeting in order for the board to approve Iran’s intention to sign the protocol. Once the board approves, Iran can sign the protocol.
Meanwhile, this year’s Peace Nobel Prize winner, Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, was given a bodyguard and a car by Iran’s Interior Ministry to protect her against death threats, a spokesman for her rights groups said yesterday.
“For the past week, the Interior Ministry has provided Shirin Ebadi with a car and a bodyguard who also drives her around,” said Mohammed Ali Dadkhah, spokesman for the Human Rights Defenders Circle. “But Mrs. Ebadi is not worried,” he added.
He said the Circle had sent a letter to the Interior Ministry asking it to organize protection for Ebadi after she received death threat letters, most of them anonymous. “We won’t let you enjoy this prize,” and “this prize is against Islam,” read some of the letters.
Dadkhah also said torn photographs of Ebadi had been found outside her organization’s headquarters and that people had malevolently tampered with a flower crown and stolen a welcome banner destined for the Nobel Prize winner.
Ebadi, who has drawn the ire of conservative Shiite clerics for promoting human rights and gender equality, announced Tuesday she would represent Zahra Kazemi’s family in the trial of an intelligence agent accused of killing her in custody last June.
