Concurrently with the suspension of certain activities for the production of nuclear fuel some two and a half years ago, research on nuclear fuel technology was also suspended, as a result of which Iranian nuclear researchers have lost their jobs and experienced great difficulty, the AEOI deputy director for international affairs said.
He went on to say that conducting research on nuclear fuel technology has nothing to do with the production of nuclear fuel, adding that the Islamic Republic had not yet made a final decision on producing nuclear fuel.
Over the past 30 months, Iran has fully cooperated with the IAEA in order to clear up the remaining ambiguities, he explained.
Due to this sincere cooperation, some previously problematic issues, including uranium enrichment activities, the 40-megawatt research reactor, laser enrichment, and some issues related to nuclear contamination were resolved and the normal process of inspections was resumed, he added.
Pointing to the fact that Iran’s transparent cooperation with the IAEA has neutralized all the negative propaganda about Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities, he said that IAEA officials have expressed their frank opinion in regard to certain significant points about Iran’s civilian nuclear program, and the few ambiguities will be cleared up in the coming months.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Saeedi said that the Russian nuclear proposal to Iran is in fact a paragraph in a text with many ambiguities that must be clarified during negotiations, so an Iranian delegation headed by the deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council will visit Russia for talks on January 7 and 8.
The AEOI deputy director noted that the level of progress in the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant and the time schedule for shipments of the power plant’s nuclear fuel would be discussed during the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency director’s visit to Tehran in February.
He said that the Bushehr nuclear power plant is 91 percent complete and expressed hope that it would come on stream in the near future.
Saeedi called the Iran-European Union negotiations in Vienna on December 21, 2005 a starting point for a new round of negotiations and expressed hope that the second round of negotiations, scheduled to begin in the next few weeks, would follow a logical process.
In conclusion, Saeedi said that the Iran–Russia nuclear negotiations are quite separate from nuclear negotiations between Iran and the EU or the IAEA, adding that the Islamic Republic would study those nuclear proposals that do not infringe on Iran’s right to make peaceful use of nuclear fuel technology.
SA/HG
End
MNA
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