Salehi: IAEA Should Close Iranˈs Detonator Probe

Tehran, June 21, IRNA -- Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to close its investigation of the issue of Iran’s development of high explosives detonators. ˈThe IAEA should have ended the investigation of the detonator issue in keeping with an understanding he claimed had been reached between the two sides on procedures for carrying out the February 2014 Framework for Cooperation agreement,ˈ Salehi said In an interview with Inter Press Service (IPS) in his office in Tehran. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano has so far refused to close the file on the issue, which is the first one Iran and the IAEA had agreed to resolve as part of an agreement on the question of what the Agency calls “possible military dimensions” of the Iranian nuclear program. Referring to the IAEA officials, Salehi said, “To the best of my knowledge and the best of my information, they have come up with the conclusion that what Iran has said is consistent with their findings.” The use of the term “consistent with” the IAEA’s information from all other sources would be identical to the formulation used by the IAEA in closing its inquiry into six “unresolved issues” that Iran and the IAEA agreed to resolve in an August 2007 “Work Program”. Salehi said the IAEA had agreed to do the same thing in regard to the issues included in the “Framework for Cooperation” agreement. “We have agreed that once our explanations were enough to bring this to conclusion they would have to close that issue,” Salehi said, adding, ˈThey should not keep the issue open.” The most recent IAEA report, dated May 23, confirmed that Iran had shown the Agency documents supporting the Iranian contention that it had carried out exploding bridge-wire (EBW) experiments for civilian applications rather than as part of a nuclear weapons program./end