IAEA's Concerns On Iran's N-energy Program, 'Fabricated Ambiguities'

Tehran, Sept 25, IRNA - Considering that IAEA inspectors have invariably failed to find any evidence of diversion in Iran's nuclear energy program to military aims despite their numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, the nuclear agency and western states should therefore welcome the positive measures taken by Iran and move toward closing the decade-long case, suggested Thursday's edition of 'Iran Daily'. A day after the Western states asked Iran to help clear up IAEA’s concerns about its nuclear energy program, the Islamic Republic dismissed them as “fabricated ambiguities.” Addressing an annual meeting of the 162-nation International Atomic Energy Agency on Tuesday, Behrouz Kamalvandi, the deputy for international affairs at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said Iran was committed to trying to reach a negotiated solution to end the decade-old nuclear dispute over its nuclear program. “However, measures such as sanctions or double standard approaches certainly harm the negotiating process and cause further mistrust,” said Kamalvandi. He also urged world powers - which resumed talks with Iran in New York last week - to take “constructive and realistic approaches” and fully respect Iran’s nuclear rights in order to end an “unnecessary” crisis. While rejecting the accusations against its nuclear program as baseless, Tehran has promised to work with the IAEA, stressed the English-language paper in its Opinion column. In an report issued in early September, IAEA said that showed Iran had responded to three of five questions of the agency by an August 25 deadline about what the UN organization calls the possible military dimensions of the country’s nuclear program. Iran says its nuclear program is a peaceful quest to generate electricity so that it can export more oil and gas, underlined the daily. In reaction to the report, Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA Reza Najafi said that Iran “had previously notified the agency that, considering the complexity of the issues in question, the full implementation of the five measures was not possible by August 25. Therefore, the agency has not expressed concern over the issue in its report, as it was aware of that beforehand,” noted the daily So far, Iran has not announced it will not implement the two measures, but asked the agency to give it more time to address IAEA’s concerns. Kamalvandi also added that Iran was fully cooperating with the IAEA and that this showed the Islamic Republic’s “goodwill and genuine efforts to clarify some fabricated ambiguities, if any, regarding its peaceful activities”. President Hassan Rouhani’s election in June 2013 raised hopes of a solution to the stand-off with the West after years of rising tension, wrote the paper, noting that an interim accord was reached between Iran and the six powers in Geneva last November. While the powers seek to limit the size of Iran’s future nuclear program, Tehran stresses that it will not withdraw from its rights for having a peaceful atomic program, it concluded./end