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Rowhani: Iran to unconditionally admit IAEA experts

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tokyo, March 16, IRNA -- Iran will unconditionally admit experts from 
the International Atomic Energy Agency as of March 27, said the 
Secretary of Iran`s Supreme National Security Council Hassan Rowhani 
here on Tuesday. 
Addressing a press conference, Rowhani said that the IAEA has no 
problem for presence in Iran, neither it would have in future. 
Experts from the IAEA were to come to Iran for inspection last 
week but Tehran called it off due to national holidays of Norouz, 
marking the beginning of the new Iranian year, and a protest against a
strongly-worded resolution adopted by the UN Nuclear watchdog on Iran.
The move by Tehran drew sharp reactions, followed by requests, 
including the one raised by Japan just on Monday, for resumption of 
Iran`s cooperation with the IAEA. 
Rowhani said Iran had cancelled the mission because the date set 
for the purpose coincided with Norouz vacations. 
He stressed that the centrifuge parts Iran had used were 
contaminated, as had been referred to in the IAEA Chief Mohammed 
ElBaradei`s reports both last year and this year. 
He quoted the report as indicating the rate of contamination being
either below or higher than 20 percent. He said that Iran believes the
contamination had been caused by the imported centrifuge parts. 
The centrifuge Iran has purchased from a broker had already been 
contaminated in a third country and in fact a second-hand centrifuge 
had been extended to Tehran, he elaborated. 
He said the broker had made it explicit recently that the parts 
sold to Iran had been second-hand and contaminated. 
The percentage of uranium enriched in Iran is only 1.2 percent and
the parts contaminated higher than the level are those brought from 
abroad, he said, adding that it is a technical subject which should be
settled by Iran and the IAEA themselves. 
The November 2003 and March 2004 resolutions of the IAEA`s Board 
of Governors have called on the third country to cooperate with the 
agency to clarify the root cause of the contamination and ElBaradei 
said in his March report that the third country is extending 
cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, said the Iranian official. 
"It think it is not a complicated issue; Iran bought second-hand 
parts from a broker and recently the broker was arrested in another 
country and his confessions are in concord with Iran`s claims," he 
added. 
The IAEA has also said the third country had confirmed it had been
responsible for the contamination and the technical issue is going to 
be solved, he added. 
Turning to the resumption of the uranium enrichment program, 
Rowhani said Iran announced in advance that it would temporarily 
suspend uranium enrichment just for confidence building purpose and 
due to the same reason it official announced suspension of the program
as of November 10th. 
The October 21st Tehran declaration says that based on the NPT 
protocol Iran is entitled to uranium enrichment, said Rowhani, 
adding that Iran suspended uranium enrichment activity only for a 
temporary period as a confidence building measure and it would resume 
it at an appropriate time. 
Iran follows two important objectives, namely uranium enrichment 
and confidence building, and on this ground, it would resume the 
activity whenever the concerns of the global community are overcome. 
216/AH/210 
End