Iran reassures on nuclear compliance

TEHRAN -- Iran reaffirmed its commitment to a nuclear arms control treaty yesterday and urged a peaceful solution to the international crisis over concerns it is seeking to develop atomic weapons, a day after its hard-line president issued a veiled threat to withdraw from the pact.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, meanwhile, began a mission to Iran to learn what controls remain on nuclear sites and equipment after Tehran ended all but minimum cooperation with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency.

In Vienna, a diplomat said Saturday that some IAEA seals and cameras had been removed from Iranian nuclear sites within the past few days, suggesting that their removal occurred without IAEA supervision. But others familiar with the probe said they doubted the Iranians would make such a move before the arrival of the inspectors, which occurred over the weekend.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran would cooperate with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the safeguards it provides.

''We are still committed to the provisions of the NPT. But we can't accept its use as a [political] instrument," Asefi said at a weekly news conference.

On Saturday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected US and European pressure to resume a freeze of the country's nuclear program and hinted that Iran might withdraw from the treaty.

''The nuclear policy of the Islamic Republic so far has been peaceful. Until now, we have worked inside the agency [IAEA] and the NPT regulations," he said in a speech before tens of thousands of Iranians marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

''If we see you want to violate the right of the Iranian people by using those regulations [against us], you should know that the Iranian people will revise its policies," he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that such a move by Iran ''would only deepen their own isolation," citing a recent IAEA decision to report the country to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions, after months of failed talks between the Iranians and European negotiators.

''The really remarkable thing over the last several months is that there's really now a tremendous coalition of countries that are saying exactly the same thing to Iran," she said yesterday on ABC's ''This Week."

''And so, the Iranians now need to step back, look at where they are, see that they're isolated on this issue, and return to a state in which they would . . . get back into good graces with the IAEA, and get back into negotiations with those who are prepared to offer them a course for civil nuclear power," she said.

Tehran repeatedly has stressed that the nuclear arms control treaty allows it to pursue a nuclear program for peaceful purposes and it has said it will never give up the right to enrich uranium to produce nuclear fuel. The United States and its European allies say they believe Iran is seeking to develop atomic weapons.

Uranium enriched to a low degree can be used for nuclear reactors, while highly enriched uranium is suitable for warheads.

North Korea -- the world's other major proliferation concern -- quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in January 2003, a few months before US officials announced that Pyongyang had told them it had nuclear weapons and may test, export, or use them depending on US actions.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman urged the IAEA and the Europeans to keep open diplomatic channels.

''The agency and other parties should not block roads to the Islamic Republic of Iran and should solve the case in the framework of the regulations," Asefi said.

He rejected comments by Foreign Minister Jack Straw of Britain, who said last week that there was no proof but ''very high level of suspicion" that Iran was trying to build a nuclear weapon.

''How do you apply a policy of nontrust toward Iran when there is no proof that Iran is trying to divert its nuclear program toward a weapon?" Asefi said.

Tensions escalated last month after Iran removed UN seals and began nuclear research, including small-scale uranium enrichment at its Natanz plant. Diplomats in Vienna said the IAEA still has seals and equipment at Natanz and Isfahan that were allowed under basic agreements linked to the nuclear arms control treaty, which Iran has signed. With those agreements meant to monitor Iran's declared and existing nuclear stocks, they are considered inadequate in the agency's ongoing efforts to establish whether Iran has tried to develop a nuclear weapons program at undeclared facilities.