Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei on Tuesday referred a report on Iran's
nuclear program to 35 governing board countries, urging Iran to
increase the transparency of its nuclear program and cooperate with
the IAEA.
The report introduced IAEA's recent investigation on Iran's
nuclear program, and pointed out that Iran did not provide further
cooperation to the international nuclear watchdog.
Iran has been "requested to provide further clarification" of
enriched uranium as well as plutonium particles and responded to
this request on Tuesday, the report said.
Such cooperation by Iran was a "prerequisite for the agency to
be able to confirm the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program,"
it added.
The report also indicated that Iran did not observe the
resolution of the United Nations Security Council, and kept on its
uranium enrichment activities.
The report said that the IAEA had found unexplained plutonium
and highly enriched uranium traces in a nuclear waste facility in
Iran and asked Tehran for an explanation.
Iran had launched the second group of centrifugal machines, and
began to infuse uranium hexafluoride into the machines, it
said.
From August to November, Iran's nuclear establishment in
Natanzhad produced a few lower enriched uranium, said the
report.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that his
country's nuclear program would soon be completed and the world now
had no choice but to "live with a nuclear Iran."
Ahmadinejad announced that the ultimate aim of Iran's atomic
drive was to install some 60,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges to
produce nuclear fuel.
Tehran insists it seeks enrichment capabilities only to be able
to generate low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel and not the
highly enriched variety used for weapons.
The IAEA was scheduled to hold a two-day conference in Vienna on
Nov. 23-24 at which Elbaradei's report on Iran's nuclear issue will
be discussed.
UN Security Council ratified the 1696 resolution on Iran's
nuclear issue in July, calling on Iran to suspend its uranium
enrichment related activities. Otherwise, Iran might face
international sanctions.
(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2006)
