TEHRAN, 28 November 2003 — Iran said yesterday it had nothing to fear from snap inspections of its nuclear facilities despite a warning from the UN nuclear watchdog that any suspicious and unexpected findings would not be tolerated. The UN International Atomic Energy Agency on Wednesday condemned Iran’s 18-year cover-up of sensitive nuclear research, including uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing — which could point to an atomic arms program.
But in recognition of Iran’s promise of greater cooperation, including Tehran’s commitment to allow snap inspections of nuclear sites, the IAEA stopped short of reporting Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. Iran maintains it has no intention of building nuclear weapons and is developing nuclear technology for an atomic energy program to meet booming electricity demand.
“We have no fear about our peaceful nuclear activities and surely if the agency inspects Iran for years, we will stress the peaceful aims of our nuclear program,” Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chief Hassan Rohani was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
“Therefore, we are not worried about article eight of the (IAEA) resolution,” he added, referring to a clause in the resolution which says that the IAEA board would meet immediately to consider “all options at its disposal” if any further serious Iranian failures to report nuclear activities come to light.
IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei said the resolution sent a “very serious and ominous message” to Tehran. Baradei told Fox News on Wednesday the IAEA board members “are saying that we will give them (Iran) one final chance to come clean and if you don’t, we will use all options available to us, including reporting you to the Security Council.”
Iran’s Jomhuri-ye-Islami newspaper said the resolution was “a sword hanging over Iran’s head that will always threaten our nuclear activities.” The conservative Jam-e-Jam newspaper said Iran could draw little comfort from the fact that it had avoided being reported to the Security Council.
“It is highly possible that America’s war-seeking circles follow a different path to that of the resolution,” it said in an editorial. “American officials have proved that they do not respect UN resolutions or even the Security Council. They act based on their own interests.”
Rohani, who emerged in recent weeks as the key negotiator on the nuclear issue in talks with Britain, France and Germany, hailed the resolution as a victory for Iran over its archenemies the United States and Israel.
Washington, which last year termed Iran a member of the “axis of evil” along with North Korea and prewar Iraq, had hoped to send Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions for “non-compliance” with its nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations.
But European countries, led by Britain, France and Germany, opposed this, having promised Iran to solve its case within the IAEA if it came clean about its nuclear activities. “Our relations with European countries and the IAEA have entered a new era,” Rohani said.
Meanwhile, the former head of Iran’s Revolutionary Courts, dubbed “the hanging judge” for sending hundreds to the gallows in the first months after the 1979 revolution, has died, a relative said yesterday.
Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, who in recent years had expressed his support for the political reform movement led by President Muhammad Khatami, died on Wednesday aged 76 after battling a series of health problems.
“He had Parkinson’s disease, heart and brain problems and he has been very ill in the last eight months,” the relative, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
As head of the Revolutionary Courts he ordered the execution of many of the deposed shah’s top military officers, secret police (SAVAK) leaders, civilian officials and scores of Kurds caught up in an uprising in Iran’s Kurdish-majority regions.
Concerned by Khalkhali’s harsh punishments the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini dismissed him in 1980. Khalkhali, who was unrepentant about his rulings, spent much of the past decade out of the public gaze in the holy city of Qom in central Iran.
Following Khatami’s 1997 landslide election win Khalkhali pronounced himself an advocate of reforms but he was viewed with distrust by Khatami’s allies.
