Iran to present new solution to IAEA

Iran will present a new plan for settling the nuclear dispute to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) within the next three weeks, the deputy of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation said on Saturday.

The main condition for starting the new plan would, however, be maintaining the Iranian nuclear case within the IAEA and not the UN Security Council, deputy Mohammad Saeidi said in an interview with the news network Khabar.

Saeidi said that within the plan Iran would also resume voluntary implementation of the IAEA Additional Protocol and renew snap inspections of Iran's nuclear sites by IAEA, but would continue with nuclear enrichment for research purposes.

He had said on Friday that the eight-page report from IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei contained "no negative aspects".

According to Saeidi, the report once again showed that the IAEA still had the potential to deal with the Iranian nuclear case and that involvement of the UN Security Council was "totally wrong".

The Iranian official claimed that ElBaradei would also welcome the Iranian case being evaluated within the IAEA and not the Security Council.

"The report was of course not very satisfactory and could have been better but our new plan would be the most suitable way to settle the dispute in a diplomatic way - under the condition, however, that some countries stop their stubborn approach," he said.

Saeidi termed the Security Council's demand for Iran to stop the enrichment process as illegal and contrary to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

He claimed that the differences over the P-1 and P-2 devices and the nuclear pollution mentioned in ElBaradei's report have been settled with the IAEA almost by 80 per cent.

Referring to Pakistan from where Iran had purchased the devices, Saeidi said the remaining differences were related to issues beyond Iranian borders.

"We are currently using only P-1 devices in our uranium enrichment process but we have already told the IAEA that it would be inevitable to use the most progressive devices to accelerate the enrichment process," he said.

Saeidi added that the research phase of the enrichment process in the Natanz plant in central Iran was continuing within a 164-centrifuge cascade and at a 3.6 per cent level, and that Iran was planning to expand the cascades to 3,000 centrifuges within a year.

"This would enable us to start the initial phase of the industrial enrichment," he said while stressing that the Natanz plant had recently been inspected by the IAEA.

First Published: Apr 29, 2006 19:45 IST