Iran insists all IAEA nuclear questions answered
IRAN: Iran has already answered all the UN atomic agency's questions
over its nuclear programme, the foreign minister said on Wednesday,
after the watchdog announced Tehran had agreed to respond to claims it
was studying how to develop a nuclear weapon.
"In the past year there has been a friendly cooperation between Iran
and the IAEA," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said. "We have
responded to all questions and ambiguities that the agency had.
"About the alleged studies - within that period of cooperation we
responded to the issues that they had pointed out and our responses were
completely clear, legal and logical," he said at a news conference
alongside Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Wednesday that
its deputy director general, Olli Heinonen, reached an agreement with
Iran to examine allegations that Tehran has studied how to design
nuclear weapons.
Heinonen had held closed-door talks with Iranian officials in Tehran
Monday and Tuesday but no information filtered out on the contents of
the discussions amid an apparent media blackout.
Mottaki insisted that Tehran's nuclear file was no longer a special
case for the agency. "From now, on Iran's cooperation with the agency is
the dealing of a ordinary member state with the agency under the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty and the IAEA's regulations.
"So we will have such trips and exchanges of views in the future," he
added, in reference to Heinonen's visit. Tehran, Thursday, AFP |