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| Iran agrees to put all nuke issues on the table |
| D Ravi Kanth / Geneva Oct 03, 2009, 00:00 IST |
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Willing to talk on united powers’ demand to inspect all its atomic facilities
Iran bowed to international pressure yesterday by agreeing to begin comprehensive negotiations with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany on all aspects of its controversial nuclear programme.
In a significant move, Iran softened its earlier hardline stance on the refusal to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear facilities, particularly the new uranium enrichment facility being built near th city of Qom.
Earlier, the IAEA had said in its latest report: “Iran has neither implemented the Additional Protocol nor cooperated with the Agency in connection with the remaining issues of concern which need to be clarified to exclude the possibility of military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.”
Teheran finally signaled its willingness to enter an intensified dialogue with the five Council members (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France), Germany and the European Union’s high representative, Javier Solana, later this month in Geneva.
After a daylong meeting yesterday at Geneva’s 18th century lakeside villa, Solana told reporters the six countries put all the issues on the table to take forward the negotiations to the next stage.
He said the six were united in their demand that Iran must provide full transparency on all elements of its nuclear programme and work towards further confidence building measures.
Iran’s secretary of its supreme national security council, Saeed Jalili, assured them that Teheran would discuss all the issues, including that of opening the Qom facility for possible inspection.
At the meeting, the six countries and Iran also agreed to send certain lowly enriched isotopes - molybdenum, Iodine, Xenon Radioisotope production - at the Teheran Research Reactor to a third country for further enrichment. The US, Russia and France offered to take this lowly enriched uranium, the EU official said
Solana described the meeting, which took place after 15 months, as an important beginning where all “the six countries” stuck to what was agreed in New York last week. As regards intrusive inspections of all the Iranian nuclear facilities, particularly interviews with all the scientists at the nuclear sites as demanded by the US, the two sides have decided to hold more consultations,” the EU official said.
Iran’s two hitherto strong allies, Russia and China, had adopted a common stance with the other western partners, forcing Teheran to climb down from its defiant positions, analysts said.
About the scope of further sanctions, the EU official said it is clear the P5 countries and Germany have already agreed to impose stringent measures should there be any lack of cooperation from Teheran.
Aside from the plenary meeting involving all the parties, the US, which joined the talks for the first time, held a bilateral, one-to-one meeting with Iran, a development that came after almost 30 years, analysts said.
The US official, William Burns, and Saeed Jalili held their bilateral talks during a lunch break at the Geneva meeting. Though it was not clear what took place there, analysts said it is a “significant development” in the hope of breaking a four-year impasse over Iran’s nuclear activities.
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