IN a dramatic 11th hour move ahead of a crucial UN atomic agency meeting, Iran has asked the watchdog to exempt several dozen centrifuges from its pledge to freeze its nuclear fuel cycle, diplomats said today. The development has been rejected by the European Union which earlier this month negotiated what was supposed to be a halt in all of Iran's uranium enrichment activities. It comes ahead of a meeting tomorrow of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which will decide whether to bring Iran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, sought by the United States for what it says is a covert nuclear weapons program. A diplomat close to the agency said the Iranians "are trying to convince the IAEA to leave several dozen of the centrifuges unsealed for RD (research and development) purposes in addition to other equipment which has direct use for enrichment".
A Western diplomat said it would be "outrageous" if Iran at the last minute exempted some centrifuges, the machines used in enriching uranium. "It is not acceptable to us," a European diplomat said. Under the terms of a deal hammered out with Britain, France and Germany, Tehran was to suspend all uranium enrichment activities from Monday, a move which is now being verified by the IAEA. Iran had continued to produce the uranium gas that is the feedstuff for enriching uranium only days before Monday's ban, in a move which one European diplomat characterised as "not very helpful" as it led to doubts about Iran's intentions and the future of the suspension deal.
Iran has moved quickly to "sanitise" a site in northeast Tehran alleged to be at the heart of its feared pursuit of nuclear weapons, an Iranian opposition group claimed today. Speaking in London, National Council of Resistance (NCRI) member Farid Soleimani who said nine days ago in Vienna that secret enrichment work was being done at the Centre for Development of Advance Defence Technology, said the top secret site now has been sealed off. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is to report on the suspension when the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors meets tomorrow. IAEA officials were meeting with an Iranian delegation in Vienna today to point out that the Europeans insisted on a full, unequivocal suspension, a European diplomat said. The IAEA board will tomorrow hear a European draft resolution based on the suspension agreement and which finally won US backing. |