Iran warns more UN sanctions threaten inspections
Says decisions on access to nuclear sites may change
TEHRAN -- Iranian officials said yesterday that any further UN Security Council sanctions on the country could jeopardize its recent decisions to grant international inspectors greater access to nuclear sites and disclose information about past activities.
Iran last week announced a decision to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, to monitor its heavy water reactor near the western town of Arak, after barring them earlier this year. Iran also agreed on increased safeguards for its uranium enrichment facility near the town of Natanz and to discuss unresolved questions about its past nuclear research.
But Iranian officials yesterday said bluntly that Iran's acquiescence to IAEA requests was meant to stave off further UN action over its controversial enrichment of uranium, which it has repeatedly stated it would not halt.
"This move was in line with Iran's intention to strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency's role in the international arena as the organization which was related to Iran's nuclear program, and to weaken the movement which was taken via the UN Security Council against Iran's peaceful nuclear intentions," said Iran's representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, to the Iranian Students News Agency.
The Iranian statements came a day after IAEA inspectors arrived in North Korea to begin monitoring that nation's nuclear complex, which has been closed to international monitors in recent years. North Korea on Saturday told US officials it had shut down its nuclear reactor, an important move toward scaling back its controversial nuclear program.
"It appears that the facility is shut down," national security adviser Stephen Hadley said during an interview on Fox News Sunday.
But the Bush administration continues to have "concerns they may have a covert enrichment program," Hadley added. "That will be the next subject of discussions."
Iran remains locked in a dispute with the United States and other members of the international community over its nuclear energy projects, which governments in the United States and Europe suspect mask a weapons program. Tehran maintains that weapons of mass destruction run counter to Iran's Islamic principles and that it is obtaining nuclear technology to meet its growing energy needs and conduct scientific research.
The Security Council, prodded by the United States, has demanded that Iran stop producing concentrated uranium, a step in the production of an atomic bomb and a building block for a civilian nuclear energy program. It has imposed two rounds of economic sanctions on Iran and is gearing up for a third.
But Soltanieh warned that any new move by the Security Council could "poison the current atmosphere" between Iran and the atomic agency.
A third set of sanctions could also end Iran's decision to begin talks meant to clear up questions about past nuclear activities, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini told reporters at his weekly briefing.
"The issuance of a new resolution will have an impact on the negotiations," he said in response to a reporter's question.
Regardless of the outcome of the IAEA talks, Iran will continue enriching uranium, he said.
"The enrichment of uranium is being carried out according to predetermined plan and has nothing to do the process of negotiations with IAEA," he said, rejecting inspectors' recent assessment that Iran had slowed down its enrichment activities. 