Iran said today it was willing to allow snap UN inspections of its nuclear facilities if the controversy surrounding the programme was dropped by the UN Security Council and referred back to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
But Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, said Iran would not yield to UN demands that it abandon uranium enrichment, and criticised yesterday's report by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog.
Dr ElBaradei said UN checks in Iran had been hampered and Tehran had rebuffed requests to stop making nuclear fuel.
"The report was not completely satisfactory for us and we believe that the report could have been done better than that," Dr Saeedi told state television.
However, Dr Saeedi insisted Iran would be able to answer Dr ElBaradei's concerns about the access granted to UN inspectors if Tehran's nuclear dossier were dropped by the UN Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.
"If the case returns to the agency again, we will begin the section that concerns the Additional Protocol," he said.
"The enrichment will continue. But ... we will continue implementing the Additional Protocol as a voluntary measure."
The Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty allows short-notice inspections of nuclear facilities.
"If they change their decision and choose the wise path, and the case returns to the IAEA, we believe we can solve all the issues mentioned in ElBaradei's eight-page report very quickly," he said.