According to Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano's latest report on Iran's nuclear program show that the country is cooperating with the IAEA on nuclear inspection. The reported, dated 2 September, leaked to the media.
Soltaniyeh noted that Iran provided IAEA Deputy Head of the Safeguards Department Herman Nackaerts and his assistants access to Iran's nuclear sites and advanced centrifuges, adding that Iran is the only nation that has ever granted IAEA inspectors access to its centrifuges, Press TV reported.
A differing interpretation appears in the report itself, which notes that "Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities," and Iran "has not suspended work on all heavy water related projects, including the construction of the heavy water moderated research reactor."
Iran's civilian nuclear energy program has come under increasingly harsh criticism from both the U.S. and Israel, which suspect that it in fact is a façade for a covert nuclear weapons development program, a charge Iran denies, pointing out that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, Iran has legal internationally recognized rights to develop and acquire nuclear technology used solely for peaceful purposes.
In a further development of Iran's nuclear program, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran announced that the nation's first nuclear power plant at Bushehr "joined the national grid" Saturday night at 11:29 p.m. local time.
By. Charles Kennedy, Deputy Editor OilPrice.com
Charles is a writer for Oilprice.com More