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Iran Will Sign Additional Protocol in “Next Few Days”
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said Saturday that Tehran will soon sign an agreement to allow more intrusive international monitoring of its nuclear activities, China Daily reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 12). Iran will sign the Additional Protocol to its nuclear safeguards agreement “in the next few days,” according to Kharazi. “It had to be approved by the Supreme National Security Council, then the government, and now it is under way,” he added. After Iran signs the document, it must still pass through the parliament and the Guardian Council, a 12-member group that ensures pending legislation is compliant with Islamic law (China Daily, Dec. 14). Spent-Fuel Agreement Delayed AgainMoscow, meanwhile, will not press Iran to sign an agreement on the return of spent nuclear fuel from the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant. Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said that Russia will give Iran time to focus on signing the Additional Protocol. “For the time being there was no need” to rush the spent-fuel agreement, Rumyantsev said. “It could wait several months,” he added (ITAR-Tass/BBC Monitoring, Dec. 15). An anti-aircraft exercise at the Bushehr site accidentally killed as many as seven civilians, a local official said today. “Two people were killed and 13 were injured, but there are reports that the number of dead could be as high as seven. We are investigating it,” said Asghar Zareii, a public relations officer for Bushehr’s governor general. Anti-aircraft shells failed to explode in the air during an exercise and instead struck a bus and a residential area, Zareii said. Iran is concerned that Israel or the United States might try to attack the nuclear plant (Agence France-Presse/IranMania.com, Dec. 15).
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