Iran invites IAEA members to visit its nuclear facilities

Some representatives of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) members have been invited to visit Iranian nuclear sites from Feb 2 to Feb 6, a senior envoy at IAEA told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Those invited include representatives of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Group 77 states.

According to the senior envoy, the main aim of the invitation to visit Iran is to display the openness and transparency of Iranian atomic fuel program and to win more support from other developing countries.

"Such visits to nuclear facilities will help Iran to establish trust and demonstrate the peaceful goals of the Iranian nuclear program," said Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's chief IAEA delegate.

But, in contrast, Gregory Schulte, the U.S. ambassador to the U. N. office in Vienna, Austria, told local reporters last week that "Iran's nuclear activities are not consistent with a program that is peaceful."

Moreover, U.S. insists on and pushes for great reduction of the IAEA nuclear technical aid to Iran, in comply with the UN Security Council's new sanctions resolution, diplomats said on Tuesday.

As to the relationship with IAEA, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "Iran has been cooperating closely with IAEA and has respected international laws and regulations", quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

The UN Security Council passed the resolution 1737 on Dec. 23, 2006, imposing sanctions and urging Tehran to suspend the enrichment activities. However, Iranian officials have rejected it and vowed to install 3,000 centrifuges by March 2007.

Source: Xinhua