Iran rejects IAEA report as politically motivated, partial

Sep 7, 2010, 0:03 GMT

Tehran - Iran rejected Monday's report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as politically motivated and partial, ISNA news agency reported.

'The IAEA should be more careful and not deviate from the course of impartiality and fairness,' the chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali-Akbar Salehi, told ISNA.

'We believe that if the IAEA deviated from its main course and lost the status of a specialized technical UN body, then it would also lose its international credibility,' said Salehi, who is also deputy to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said in his latest report that Iran has complicated the agency's work in the country by repeatedly vetoing certain nuclear inspectors.

'It is not only our right but the right of all IAEA members to select the IAEA inspectors (coming to Iran) and the two inspectors (mentioned in the IAEA report) were rejected as they had made false reports and the IAEA is perfectly aware of that but just does not want to acknowledge it,' Salehi said.

'We told the IAEA to introduce two new inspectors whom we eventually granted permission to come (to Iran),' the atomic chief added.

While referring to the IAEA demand to investigate Western intelligence reports accusing Iran of secretly working on an atomic bomb research programme, Salehi said Iran should first be entitled to see the intelligence documents before taking any action.

The Iranian vice-president also said that inspection of other Iranian nuclear facilities such as the heavy water reactor in Arak in central Iran was not within the bilateral contract between Iran and the IAEA and Tehran had no legal obligation to open these sites to IAEA inspections.

'We feel that political pressures (by world powers) are gradually having their impacts on certain parts of the IAEA but still we respect this UN body and our criticism should therefore be interpreted as friendly and constructive,' Salehi said.