Tehran, October 05: Iran said on Monday that the chief of the UN atomic watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei was full of praise for Tehran’s “cooperation” over its nuclear programme during his weekend visit to Tehran.
Foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi also reiterated at a media conference that the programme was peaceful in purpose.
“ElBaradei praised Iran’s cooperation,” Ghashghavi said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief visited Tehran from Saturday to work out modalities for UN inspections of Iran’s newly disclosed uranium enrichment plant near the holy city of Qom.
After a series of meetings with Iranian officials, ElBaradei announced to reporters on Sunday that UN experts would visit the site on October 25.
He also said that Iran’s controversy over the nuclear programme can be solved through “dialogue.”
“At present we are shifting from confrontation to cooperation and I am asking Iran to continue its transparency,” ElBaradei said.
“We are now on an appropriate path. The agency and the international community and Iran have started constructive talks.”
Ghashghavi was adamant on Monday that Iran’s nuclear programme was purely for peaceful purposes.
“There is no military diversion in our nuclear activities. How can we prove the non-existence of something?” he asked.
“Such issue cannot be proved. There is no nuclear weapon” in Iran.
ElBaradei told a news conference in Tehran that Iran had given the assurance IAEA inspectors would be given access to the new plant, in a mountain near the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran.
But ElBaradei at the news conference indicated that Tehran had been late in disclosing that it was building a new uranium enrichment plant near Qom.
“Based on the IAEA regulations, all countries should inform the IAEA on the day they begin construction” of a nuclear plant. Iran informed the agency on September 21, about a year after it building work began.
ElBaradei said the IAEA has “no concrete proof” of a weaponisation programme in Iran when he was asked about Saturday’s New York Times report that a confidential analysis by the IAEA had tentatively concluded that Iran had acquired sufficient information to design and produce a “workable” atom bomb.
“There are allegations that Iran has conducted weaponisation studies… we are still looking into, we are looking to Iran to help us to clarify and looking to those suppliers for clarification,” ElBaradei said.
“But we do not have any information that any component of nuclear weapon has been manufactured. We are concerned but we are in no way panicking about Iran’s nuclear programme. However we need to work with Iran to clarify these issues.”
In Washington, National Security Adviser James Jones told CBS television that US officials “stand by the reports that we’ve put out” on the state of Iran’s nuclear abilities and reports that it now has the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb.
“Whether they know how to do it or not is a matter of some conjecture, but what we are watching is what is their intent, and we have been worried about that intent,” he said.
“I think that what’s happened with regard to Iran in the last couple of weeks has been very significant. And I think that they’ve recently announced that they will open their facility for inspection,” he said.
Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice stressed Sunday that six world powers collectively known as the P5 + 1 were in “intense negotiations” with Tehran over its controversial nuclear drive, calling recent diplomatic inroads “only a beginning.”
“The onus is now squarely on Iran to adhere to the commitments it has made,” Rice told NBC.
ElBaradei also announced that officials from the United States, Russia, France and Iran would hold talks in Vienna on October 19 on the possible higher enrichment abroad of Tehran’s uranium.
The meeting is a follow up to talks in Geneva last Thursday between six world powers and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear drive, the first such talks in 15 months.
Iran tentatively agreed in Geneva to ship some of its stocks of low enriched uranium (LEU) abroad for processing into fuel for an internationally supervised research reactor in Tehran.
ElBaradei was guest of honour at a banquet Sunday night hosted by the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, since this was his last visit to Iran as IAEA chief, the ISNA news agency reported.
Meanwhile, US lawmakers vowed Sunday to take up swift and severe sanctions against Iran.
A chorus of congressional voices, both Republican and Democratic, urged tough action against Tehran, following the unproven and shady New York Times report.
“The Iranians will have a nuclear weapon if something doesn’t change their minds. We need tough sanctions. We need to do them now,” Democratic Senator Evan Bayh told “Fox News Sunday.”
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a leading congressional voice on defense and security matters, said he would like Congress to set aside a week dedicated to a raft of new sanctions legislation against Iran.
“Let’s have Iran week in the Senate and get something done,” he said, proposing to discuss a series of measures “that would empower the president and our country to be tough and to put actions behind words.”
Iran insists it has the right to develop nuclear technology, which it says is aimed at generating energy for its growing population.
Although Iran has oil, it is still dependent on petrol imports to meet about 40 percent of domestic consumption.
Israel is the only country in the Middle Ease that actually has nuclear weapons.
Observers say due the strong Jewish and pro-Israel lobbies in the US and some European countries, these countries have taken a hypocritical stance in relation to nuclear issues in the region.
—Agencies