Iran issues warning on U.N. sanctions
al-LA Times | July 16, 2007 | Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi
 

Cooperation with nuclear inspectors could be affected, Tehran says.

TEHRAN — Iranian officials said Sunday that any further United Nations Security Council sanctions on the country could jeopardize its recent decisions to grant international inspectors greater access to nuclear sites and disclose information about past activities.

Iran last week announced a decision to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, to monitor its heavy-water reactor near the western town of Arak, after having barred them this year. Iran also agreed on increased safeguards for its uranium enrichment facility near the town of Natanz and to further discuss unresolved questions about its nuclear research.

But Iranian officials on Sunday said bluntly that Iran's acquiescence to IAEA requests was meant to stave off further U.N. action over its controversial enrichment of uranium, which it has repeatedly stated it will not halt.

"This move was in line with Iran's intention to strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency's role in the international arena as the organization which was related to Iran's nuclear program, and to weaken the movement which was taken via the U.N. Security Council against Iran's peaceful nuclear intentions," Iran's representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the Iranian Students News Agency.

The Iranian statements came a day after IAEA inspectors arrived in North Korea to begin monitoring that nation's nuclear complex, which had been shut to international monitors in recent years. North Korea on Saturday told U.S. officials it had shut down its nuclear reactor, an important move toward scaling back its controversial nuclear program.

"It appears that the facility is shut down," national security advisor Stephen Hadley said during an interview on "Fox News Sunday."

But the Bush administration continues to have "concerns they may have a covert enrichment program," he said.
 

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