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Business News/ News / World/  Iran won’t accept nuclear restraints ‘beyond IAEA rules’
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Iran won’t accept nuclear restraints ‘beyond IAEA rules’

Monitoring beyond non-proliferation treaty would be a precedent, against the interests of all developing countries, says President Hassan Rouhani

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani ( right) and director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, in Tehran on Sunday. Photo: AP.Premium
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani ( right) and director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, in Tehran on Sunday. Photo: AP.

Tehran: Iran will reject any restraints on its nuclear operations outside international rules set by the industry watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday.

“We will only accept the legal controls of the IAEA within the framework of the non-proliferation treaty," Rouhani said during a visit by IAEA chief Yukiya Amano. “Any monitoring beyond those rules would be a precedent, against the interests of all developing countries."

Amano made a one-day visit to Tehran ahead of an 25 August deadline for Iran to answer decade-old allegations of past nuclear weapons research.

He held morning talks with foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif before meeting Rouhani, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported. He later also met with Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation.

As part of the implementation of the interim deal it struck with world powers in November, Iran handed the IAEA documents in April and May relating to its past research, the first time it had done so in six years.

The submissions were in response to a November 2011 IAEA report that it had the intelligence that Iran had until 2003 and possibly since then conducted research into developing nuclear weapons.

Addressing these claims, long refuted by Iran, would be an important element in the comprehensive accord over Tehran’s nuclear programme that Iran and world powers want to strike by 24 November.

The IAEA has raised a number of questions relating to the submissions and Tehran has until 25 August to reply to these. Amano had said in a May report that Iran showed information to the agency that “simultaneous firing of EBW (Explosive Bridge Wire detonators) was tested for a civilian application".

At a press conference on Sunday in Tehran, Amano broached the issue again, saying Iran had provided information and explanations to the IAEA on Tehran’s decision, in early 2000, to develop safer detonators.

“Iran has also provided information and explanations to the (IAEA) on its work post-2007 related to the application of EBWs in the oil and gas industry which is not inconsistent with specialized industry practices," he added.

“The IAEA will need to consider all past outstanding issues, including EBWs, integrating all of them in a system and assessing the system as a whole."

‘Step by step’

Amano in his talks with Rouhani on Sunday said he hoped “cooperation will continue in this more constructive atmosphere". “The agency’s aim is to move forward step by step to resolve the outstanding issues," state television quoted him as saying. “It has no wish to drag out the process."

Rouhani again insisted Iran’s nuclear programme was for entirely peaceful purposes only. “Weapons of mass destruction have no place in (Iran’s) defence strategy," he said. He hoped that talks with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, known as P5+1, would “give the Iranian people and parliament the necessary confidence to continue discussions".

“Iran is serious in its negotiations with the P5+1 group and wants nothing beyond its rights, especially concerning enrichment of uranium for peaceful aims."

Rouhani said, however: “Iran’s ballistic capability is not negotiable at any level", as the US is seeking.

In a key deal with the P5+1 powers, Iran agreed in November to roll back its nuclear programme in exchange for some relief from biting international sanctions. A new round of talks between the two sides is expected before the UN General Assembly starts on 16 September.

After several months of talks, Iran and P5+1 powers decided last month to extend their self-imposed deadline of 20 July to strike an agreement until 24 November.

Such an accord is aimed at easing fears once and for all that the Islamic republic might use its civilian nuclear programme to build an atomic bomb.

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Published: 17 Aug 2014, 06:49 PM IST
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