Tehran Pledges to Cooperate With IAEA

News, November 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Agence France Presse, Arab News

TEHRAN, 30 November 2003 — Iran will provide the UN’s atomic watchdog with all the information it requires by February, the country’s top nuclear official said yesterday, repeating a pledge to sign soon an additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

However, Hassan Rowhani, who handles Iran’s nuclear affairs as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said the Islamic republic was still refusing to indefinitely suspend its uranium enrichment activities.

“The government must give its authorization to its representative (to the IAEA) to sign (the protocol). It won’t be very long,” Rowhani told a press conference. “The director general (of the IAEA, Mohammed El-Baradei) must present his new report in February ... we will put every means at the agency’s disposal so it can verify the information which we have provided,” he said.

Rowhani was speaking for the first time since the IAEA on Wednesday condemned Iran for 18 years of covert nuclear activities but stopped short of bowing to US demands that Tehran be hauled up before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

The IAEA resolution was a compromise between the US call to censure Iran and demands from Britain, France and Germany that Iran be rewarded for cooperating since October with the UN agency.

Following an unprecedented mission by the foreign ministers of Europe’s Big Three in October, Iran agreed to sign the NPT additional protocol allowing tougher inspections of its nuclear facilities. It also agreed to make a full declaration of its nuclear activities and temporarily suspend uranium enrichment.

But the text of the Wednesday’s IAEA resolution also contained harsh words for Iran, in particular a passage warning that any further non-proliferation breaches would be met by stern action.

Tehran insists on the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities, and Rowhani refused to rule out future uranium enrichment.

“The suspension of enrichment is provisional and voluntary, to build confidence. Halting our enrichment activities is out of the question,” he said.

Uranium enrichment is at the center of international concern that Iran could be capable of building an atomic bomb. Tehran has said it reserves the right to restart enrichment “at any moment.”

“We at least want to be able to supply the fuel for one of our future civilian nuclear facilities,” Rowhani said. “We are going to talk with Europeans about a transfer of modern technology, including nuclear, and about (the delivery to Iran of nuclear) fuel,” he said.

Britain, France and Germany have denied that their October mission included a promise to give Iran access to nuclear technology. Russia has been heavily involved in building Iran’s only nuclear reactor, at Bushehr, despite strong objections from the United States.

But Iran is keen to avoid over dependence on Moscow, and Rowhani expressed hopes for a European deal, saying that “in the future other countries (apart from Russia) will help us build our nuclear power centers.”

The recent IAEA debate “highlighted” Europe’s role he said, while the United States has withdrawn step by step”. He also pointed out that Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea had also taken a hard line against Iran.

“There is no doubt that we will take their position (at the IAEA) into account when we allocate important contracts in the future.” Rowhani said.

Meanwhile, Iranian yesterday women won the right to have custody of boys up to the age of seven, giving divorced mothers the same rights over their sons as they do over their daughters, a reformist parliamentarian said.

Under Iran’s Islamic law, divorced women already had automatic custody of girls until they are seven, but were previously only able to keep boys until they were two.

“The Expediency Council granted divorced mothers custody of both girls and boys until the age of seven,” Elaheh Kulai, a reformist women deputy, told Reuters after it was broadcast on state television.

Iran’s conservative-controlled legislative body, the Guardian Council, had twice rejected the change on the grounds that it was against Islamic law, despite its approval by the reformist-led parliament last year.

But Parliament’s decision was backed by the powerful Expediency Council, the top arbitration body headed by influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03.

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