The head of Iran’s nuclear agency said yesterday that July 9 talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency would clear up any lingering suspicions about Tehran’s nuclear program (see GSN, July 2).

Gholamreza Aghazadeh said he had no objections to international calls for Iran to allow the IAEA to conduct tougher inspections of its nuclear sites.  He did not say, however, if Iran would agree to sign the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which would allow the agency to conduct more intrusive monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities.  In addition, Aghazadeh also called on the IAEA to clarify Iran’s obligations.

“It is therefore vital to hold talks with the secretary general of the IAEA on transparency and we will discuss this issue,” Aghazadeh said.  “We want to clarify the IAEA’s guarantees and obligations to Iran. ... The propaganda campaign directed against Iran is incorrect and out of place.  Our activity is perfectly clear,” he said.

The IAEA has asked Iran to provide more information on two undeclared sites that an Iranian opposition group has previously alleged were intended for uranium enrichment purposes, according to Reuters (see GSN, May 27).  A diplomat refused to say if the IAEA planned to visit the two sites when an inspection team arrived in Iran next week.

Russian Aid to Iran

Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for pressuring Iran against developing nuclear weapons.  Bush said he thanked Putin during a telephone call “for keeping the pressure on the Iranian government to dismantle any notions they might have of building a nuclear weapon” (Reuters/Planet Ark, July 3).

Aghazadeh said that Russian officials assured him during a three-day visit this week to Moscow that Russia would not delay the construction of the Bushehr nuclear plant as a means of forcing Tehran to sign the IAEA Additional Protocol (see GSN, June 30).

“In talks with my Russian colleagues, I was told that the signing of the (additional IAEA) protocol will not in any way affect the building of the nuclear power station at Bushehr,” Aghazadeh said during a joint press conference in Moscow with Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev.

Rumyantsev said that Russia has called on Iran to sign the Additional Protocol, but refused to say what consequences, if any, Iran would face from Moscow if it did not do so.  “They haven’t violated anything,” he said.

Russia has said it would not begin supplying nuclear fuel to the Bushehr plant until Iran signed a separate agreement to return the spent fuel to Russia.  Rumyantsev said yesterday that such an agreement, long expected, was close to being signed and was only being delayed because of an incomplete ecological analysis of the impact the return of the spent fuel will have on Russia (Jeanne Whalen, Wall Street Journal, July 3).

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