Tehran, March 01: As the UN nuclear watchdog meets on Monday to discuss a key report on Iran’s atomic programme, Tehran told the agency to remember what it said were past breaches of contracts by Western powers when it came to supplying nuclear fuel to Tehran.
In a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran cited three specific examples where the United States, France and Germany had turned out to be unreliable suppliers of nuclear fuel to Tehran in the past.
The letter published by Fars news agency spoke of how Washington stopped US firm AMF from suppling fuel in 1980 to Tehran despite an agreement between the two countries. The firm failed to refund two million dollars paid in advance by Iran, it said.
The letter said that Germany had similarly breached a contract to supply fuel to Iran soon after the 1979 revolution.
Iran added in the letter to the IAEA that it was “very strange” that despite Tehran being a shareholder in Eurodif, a France-based European uranium enrichment consortium, it has never received any services from it for the country’s reactors.
“The IAEA members must take into consideration these issues,” the letter said.
The IAEA begins Monday a four-day meeting in Vienna of its 35-member board to discuss its latest report on Iran’s nuclear programme.
The 10-page report expresses concern that Tehran may be “currently” working on a nuclear warhead.
Iran insists it needs the higher-enriched uranium to fuel a research reactor which makes radioisotopes for medical purposes, such as the treatment of cancer, where the current fuel is expected to run out by the end of this year.
—Agencies