Iran's president orders end to snap UN nuclear inspections

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered an end to snap inspection on its nuclear facilities from Sunday in reaction to the UN nuclear watchdog's decision to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council, state television announced late Saturday.

In a letter to chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Gholamreza Aghazadeh, Ahmadinejad ordered an end to the implementation of the additional protocol of the nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as of Sunday, the report said.

"As of Sunday, the voluntary implementation of the additional protocol and other cooperative measures beyond the NPT must be suspended according to the law," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

Ahmadinejad's order was issued shortly after an emergency meeting of IAEA board of governors adopted a resolution to report Iran's nuclear issue to the UN Security Council.

The additional protocol, signed by the Iranian government in December 2003 but never ratified by the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) , allows snap inspections of nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The Majlis passed a law last November which requires the government to cease all voluntary confidence-building measures including implementation of the additional protocol if the country 's nuclear case were referred to the UN Security Council.

Ahmadinejad said that Iran would press on with research and development of nuclear technology and get ready to use it for peaceful purposes.

However, he did not definitely mention the resumption of uranium enrichment, just promising that all peaceful nuclear activities would be carried out within the framework of the IAEA regulations, the NPT clauses and the Safeguard Agreement.

The hardline president said the IAEA's resolution was adopted under the pressure of certain countries and did not have any legal justification.

Dispute over Iran's nuclear program has intensified since Tehran resumed nuclear fuel research on Jan. 10, regardless of warnings of the European Union (EU) which has been negotiating with Iran in the past two years but broke off the talks after Iran restarted uranium conversion, a precursor to enriching uranium into fuel, last August.

Javad Vaeedi, deputy head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and chief delegate to the IAEA meeting, said after the adoption of the resolution that Iran would no longer consider a Russian proposal to move Iran's uranium enrichment to Russia to prevent Iran from acquiring materials for making nuclear weapons.

Tehran suspended all activities related to uranium enrichment in November 2004 to pave the way for negotiations with the EU trio of Britain, France and Germany.

The United States has accused Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons and the EU has been persuading Iran to give up uranium enrichment which can be used to fuel power plant or make atom bomb under certain conditions.

But Iran rejected the charge and insisted that its nuclear program is fully for peaceful purposes and aimed at meeting rising domestic demand for electricity.

Source: Xinhua