Iran:Iran has agreed to answer remaining questions about its past covert nuclear activities within a month during talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, the UN watchdog said yesterday.
For the first time, Tehran also gave Mohamed ElBaradei information about its work to develop an advanced centrifuge able to enrich uranium much faster than the old, breakdown-prone model it uses at present, the IAEA said.
There was no sign Iran had budged from its refusal to suspend enrichment or end restrictions on IAEA inspections, steps western powers say would do more to defuse a standoff over the Islamic republic's nuclear activity.
Dr ElBaradei met Iranian leaders over two days last week to push for swifter co-operation to wrap up a long-running IAEA inquiry into the past and to shed light on Iran's current programme, which the West suspects will yield atom bombs. Iran says it wants to refine uranium only for electricity.
Dr ElBaradei is anxious to see the standoff between Iran and western powers over its nuclear ambitions settled peacefully.
After years of stonewalling that led to UN sanctions, Iran agreed in August to clarify questions about its nuclear past, called the "work plan", within months. An end-of-year target passed with issues still open. But the IAEA said the Tehran talks yielded an Iranian commitment to settle all issues in time for Dr ElBaradei's next report on Iran to the IAEA's 35-nation board in early March. "Agreement was reached on the timeline for implementation of all remaining verification issues specified in the work plan. According to the agreed schedule, implementation . . . should be completed in the next four weeks," the IAEA statement said.
A diplomat close to the IAEA said ahead of Dr ElBaradei's visit that the agency inquiry had entered a final phase, with Iran addressing US intelligence given to UN inspectors about past attempts to "weaponise" atomic material.
The diplomat said yesterday the Tehran talks result was "positive, constructive and substantive" enough for the IAEA to reverse plans not to issue a statement afterwards.
"Iran is prepared to remove all outstanding ambiguities by March," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a news conference in Tehran yesterday.
Western diplomats had feared Iran would lose motivation to complete the "work plan" after a threat of tougher UN sanctions faded following a US intelligence report saying Tehran had stopped an active nuclear weapons programme in 2003.
- (Reuters)