UN team heading to Iran with monitoring equipment

Daily Times:

A UN inspection team is set to leave for Iran to install cameras “by the middle of next week” to monitor a crucial site where Iran wants to resume nuclear fuel work in defiance of the international community, a spokeswoman said Saturday.

“A safeguards team is traveling in the next couple of days to deliver and install remote camera equipment and an inspection system will be in place in the middle of next week” at the uranium conversion facility in Isfahan, Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, told AFP.

The IAEA, which has been monitoring Iran’s suspension since November of fuel cycle work as Tehran negotiates with the European Union on its nuclear programme, has placed metal seals on machines at Isfahan.

Another diplomat close to the IAEA said the agency meanwhile is waiting for a response from the Iranians about what they plan to do at Isfahan once the monitoring system is in place. The agency sent a letter to Iran on Saturday outlining the IAEA’s plans, the diplomat said but refused to provide details. READ MORE

The diplomat said the IAEA now had “about four” inspectors in Iran, visiting various sites, and that the team being sent with the camera equipment were technicians. The diplomat refused to provide more details for security reasons.

“The IAEA doesn’t need to send more inspectors. The job at Isfahan can be done by one or two inspectors. It really depends on what the Iranians want to do,” the diplomat said. Iran said on Saturday the European Union’s proposals for incentives in return for a suspension of Iranian nuclear fuel work were unacceptable.

“The Europeans’ submitted proposals regarding the nuclear case are not acceptable for Iran,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as saying. “The proposals are unnacceptable because Iran’s right to enrich uranium is not included,” he said.

Asefi said Iran would give a full answer to the EU’s proposals on Saturday or Sunday.

The EU on Friday offered Iran a package of incentives for it to give up nuclear fuel work, but also called an urgent meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog that could refer Tehran to the UN Security Council for sanctions. The EU - represented by Britain, France and Germany - has been trying to find a compromise for two years between arch foes Iran and the United States.

Washington accuses Iran of trying to covertly build a nuclear bomb, but Tehran denies the charge and says it has the right to convert and enrich uranium for power generation.

“I should say the Europeans have not honoured their commitments,” Asefi said. “We have repeatedly said that any proposal should include Iran’s right to enrichment.”