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Moscow Urges Iran to Respond to IAEA Concerns

RIA Novosti

14:32 27/02/2012 MOSCOW, February 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russia expects Iran to answer all existing questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over its controversial nuclear program, which will confirm its right to peaceful atomic energy generation, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.

“It is very important that everybody confirms firmly and without any reservations that if Iran takes all existing issues of concern for the IAEA off the table, it will have all the rights that nuclear-free member states of the non-proliferation treaty have, including the right to enrich uranium to produce fuel,” Lavrov told journalists in Moscow.

Russia wants to be “sure” that the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program has a “purely peaceful dimension,” he added.

Tensions over Iranian nuclear activities have risen to boiling point over the past few weeks since Tehran announced mid-January that it had begun enriching uranium in the heavily fortified Fordow mountain bunker. Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway along its coastline through which one-fifth of the world's oil flows, as Western powers increased pressure on the Islamic Republic. The European Union has banned Iranian oil imports starting from July and the United States is introducing new sanctions against Tehran.

Lavrov expressed concerns over what he described as attempts by some international actors to hamper Iran’s steps towards cooperation with the IAEA.

Once Tehran “begins moving toward [meeting] the demands of the UN Security Council and the IAEA Board of Governors resolution” which calls on Iran to clarify its nuclear activities to IAEA inspectors, “someone wants to hamper, if not to disrupt those moves,” the minister said.

Israel has recently stepped up its verbal threats to attack Iran if it does not abandon its nuclear ambitions and the United States has also not ruled out the possibility of using military force against the Islamic Republic.