Iran Confident of Escaping Censure at IAEA Meeting
May 07, 2004
Reuters
reuters.com
TEHRAN -- Iran is confident it will escape censure about its nuclear program at next month's board meeting of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, its Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying on Friday.
"I am optimistic about the results of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) next meeting," the official IRNA news agency quoted Hamid Reza Asefi as saying.
"Iran will definitely not be condemned in the next meeting, because Iran has been cooperating with the agency transparently."
IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei warned Iran on Thursday the world would not wait forever for the Islamic republic to divulge the full extent and nature of its nuclear program.
Asefi said Tehran's cooperation with the agency had accelerated in recent weeks and outstanding "ambiguities" about its atomic program were about to be cleared up.
Iran has agreed to submit a full declaration about its nuclear activities to the IAEA this month. A previous "full" report handed in by Tehran last October omitted details about equipment and research that could be used to make bomb material.
Doubts remain about Iran's insistence it only wants to use nuclear technology to generate electricity, but diplomats privately acknowledge that they have not found any "smoking gun" that would prove Iran wants atomic weapons.
"We have suspicions but no evidence and we're running out of leads to follow up," said one.
Diplomats say Iran has managed to divert attention to individual issues and shortcomings, which it is gradually addressing, and away from the bigger picture of an 18-year cover-up of sensitive nuclear research and development.
Another diplomat said even Washington acknowledged there was no prospect of the IAEA board sending Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council in June.
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