DAR AL HARB / ISLAM: IAEA SAYS THAT THEY CANNOT GUARANTEE THAT IRAN'S NUKE PROGRAM IS PEACEFUL

IAEA head says agency cannot guarantee Iran nuclear program is peaceful

VIENNA, Austria: Iran seems to have paused in developing its uranium enrichment program as it awaits U.N Security Council deliberations on harsher sanctions, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday.

But IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei warned that lack of Iranian cooperation with agency inspectors meant it had not been able to establish that Tehran's nuclear activities served purely peaceful purposes.

And a senior Iranian official dashed hopes that any short-term pause could translate into Tehran accepting a U.N. Security Council demand to freeze its enrichment activities. Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's chief IAEA delegate, said his country would never give up its right to enrich.
Iran, the main issue at 35-nation IAEA board meeting that opened Monday, is not to formally come up until Tuesday at the earliest.

Still, ElBaradei touched on the dispute over Tehran's nuclear defiance both in his opening statement to the meeting and later comments to reporters.

"I do not believe that the number of centrifuges has increased, nor do I believe that nuclear material has been introduced to the centrifuges at Natanz," he said, referring to the machines used to enrich uranium at a site under IAEA monitoring.

But ElBaradei, whose agency has spent more than four years probing the nature of Tehran's nuclear activities, also said the IAEA remains "unable to provide the required assurance about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program."

Unless Tehran takes "the long overdue decision" to cooperate with the IAEA, it "will have no option but to reserve its judgment about Iran's nuclear program, and as a result the international community will continue to express concern," he told reporters.

"Quite a few uncertainties still remain about experiments, procurements and other (nuclear) activities," he said, alluding to Iran's persistent refusal to meet agency requests for clarification about aspects of its nuclear program.

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1) IAEA head says agency cannot guarantee Iran nuclear program is peaceful