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Iran slams U.S. call for sanctions on nuclear plan

DUBAI: Iran has rejected U.S. moves to impose fresh sanctions following the release of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on its nuclear programme. Iran’s top negotiator on the nuclear issue Saeed Jalili said at a press conference the report showed that there was no basis for sanctions.

“When the IAEA clearly announces that we were cooperating and the main reason to send Iran’s case to the U.N. Security Council no longer exists, then why should there be another resolution against us?” he asked. Washington has said it would encourage formulating sanctions when the Security Council and Germany meet in Brussels on Monday. The IAEA commended Iran for actively responding to questions about its past activities.

“Iran has provided sufficient access to individuals and has responded in a timely manner to questions and provided clarifications and amplifications on issues raised in the context of the work plan,” said the report. However, it observed that information about nuclear activities was diminishing.

The report also said Iran was carrying out nuclear enrichment, using 3,000 centrifuges at its facility in Natanz under safeguards. Centrifuges are spinning machines that are essential for carrying out nuclear enrichment. Low enriched uranium can be used for power generation. However, when enriched to a high degree, it can form the explosive core of an atomic weapon. In a declassified report released in September 2007 said the IAEA said issues related to the presence of highly enriched uranium particles that had been detected by the agency earlier had been resolved. Iran had also successfully addressed questions related to experiments with plutonium that it had carried out. Samples taken at a university in Iran had shown contamination by highly-enriched uranium.

Mr. Jalili said the conclusions drawn by the report would lead to the closure of issues related to its P1 and P2 centrifuges.

Contrary to American assertions that there were sufficient grounds to suspect that Iran was running a secret nuclear weapons’ programme, IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei had said on October 28 that, “I have not received any information that there is a concrete active nuclear weapons programme going on right now.”

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