'Iran will not yield to U.N. demands.' Security Council
Photo: Reuters
Iran: We’ll allow atomic checks if U.N. drops case
Deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization says country willing to resume allowing snap U.N. atomic inspections if its case were dropped by Security Council, passed back to International Atomic Energy Agency
Iran on Saturday said it was willing to resume allowing snap U.N. atomic inspections if its case were dropped by the U.N. Security Council and passed back to International Atomic Energy Agency.
But Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said Iran would not yield to U.N. demands that it abandon uranium enrichment, and criticized Friday’s report by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
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ElBaradei said U.N. checks in Iran had been hampered and Tehran had rebuffed requests to stop making nuclear fuel.
“The report was not completely satisfactory for us and we believe that the report could have been done better than that,” Saeedi told state television.
'We believe we can solve all issues'
However, Saeedi insisted Iran would be able to answer ElBaradei’s concerns about the access granted to U.N. inspectors if Tehran’s nuclear dossier were dropped by the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.
“If the case returns to the agency again, we will begin the section that concerns the Additional Protocol,” he said.
“The enrichment will continue. But ... We will continue implementing the additional protocol as a voluntary measure.”
The Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty allows short-notice inspections of nuclear facilities.
“If they change their decision and choose the wise path, and the case returns to the IAEA, we believe we can solve all the issues mentioned in ElBaradei’s eight-page report very quickly,” he said.
