Iran Denies Obstructing UN Nuclear Inspections
By Laiylla Sheerazi 'Pakistan Times' Foreign Correspondent

TEHRAN (Iran): Iran on Wednesday denied obstructing International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of its sites after the IAEA reported limited access to Iran's nuclear facilities, the state news agency reported.

"There are no obstacles to lawful and legal IAEA inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities," the deputy head of Iran's atomic energy organisation, Mohammad Saeedi, told the news.

The IAEA said in a report on Wednesday that its ability to monitor Tehran's nuclear programme had "deteriorated" because of a lack of cooperation.

The United Nations body also confirmed that Iran is still defying a UN call issued in March for it to stop uranium enrichment work that can provide fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but also material for atomic weapons.

"The access that the IAEA has now to nuclear facilities is based on Iran's legal commitment," Saeedi said, insisting that "of course it's every country's legal right to suspend part of the commitment because it has not obtained its right."

However the UN watchdog inspectors still make regular visits to Iran's atomic sites under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

IAEA Viewpoint

And, an earlier report from Vienna had sais that Iran continues to defy U.N. Security Council demands to scrap its uranium enrichment program and has instead expanded its activities, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday, in a finding that sets the stage for new council sanctions.

The report from Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, also faulted Tehran for blocking IAEA efforts to probe suspicious nuclear activities, saying that meant it could not``provide assurances about ... the exclusively peaceful nature'' of its atomic program.

And, in new and worrying phrasing, it expressed concern about its 'deteriorating' understanding of unexplored aspects of the program, despite four years of a probe sparked by revelations that Tehran had been clandestinely developing enrichment and other nuclear activities that could be used to make weapons for nearly two decades.

While the reports finding that Iran was expanding enrichment instead of curtailing it was not surprising, it was important as a trigger for possible new U.N. sanctions, the third since the first were imposed Dec. 23.●