IAEA board of governors Meet on Iran's Nuclear Dossier
Tehran, Nov. 26, 09 (Hamsayeh.Net) - 35 nations on the governing board of the IAEA have gathered in Vienna today to confer on a report by Mohamad El Baradei about Iran’s second enrichment plant near the city of Qom.
The board will enter the decision making process on Friday. A draft resolution seems to indicate that Iran should suspend uranium enrichment and stop construction of its second enrichment plant. The resolution will be voted on tomorrow.
Meanwhile, top Iranian nuclear official warned that Iran is ready to reduce cooperation with the IAEA if its board of governors passes the resolution against Iran. Tehran’s cooperation with the agency, ‘would be reduced to the minimum we are legally obliged,’ Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Thursday.
According to Non-Proliferation safeguards, IAEA member countries are urged to declare any of their nuclear related programs six month before it actually starts operation. Iran’s Ferdow enrichment site will be operational almost two years from now and Iran showing full transparency has already informed the IAEA about the Ferdow plant.
However, the IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the governors that his investigation into intelligence reports regarding peaceful nature of the Iranian program was ‘at a dead end’ due to Iranian non-cooperation, as reported by Reuters. This would contradict what the IAEA chief has already said about Iran’s constructive cooperation with the nuclear watchdog.
ElBaradei in his report on implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran announced ‘the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear materials in Iran.’
Soltanieh said a vote against Iran would ‘seriously damage the current constructive atmosphere and have long-term consequences.’
Mohamad ElBaradei who will step down as the IAEA director after 12 years in office, is completing his last meeting with the IAEA board of governors.
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