IAEA removes Seals, cameras from Iran nuke sites: Diplomats
Vienna, Feb 12 (AP): Inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog agency have stripped most surveillance cameras and agency seals from Iranian nuclear sites and equipment as demanded by Tehran in response to its referral to the UN Security Council, diplomats said.
The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential developments, said yesterday that the move was part of retaliatory measures announced by Iran that have left the International Atomic Energy Agency with only the most basic means to monitor Iran's nuke activities.
It came as Iran's president suggested his country might even pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which North Korea left three years shortly before it went public with its nuclear weapons programme.
With most surveillance equipment and seals from Iran's nascent uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz now removed - and Iran recently ending the agency's rights to in-depth nuclear probes at short notice - the IAEA has few means to monitor the progress of Tehran's enrichment efforts, which can create either nuclear fuel or the fissile core of warheads.
It also is crippled its efforts to look for secret sites and experiments that could be linked to nuclear arms.
The agency still has some seals and equipment at Natanz and Isfahan, where Iran is converting raw uranium into the feedstock gas for enrichment under basic agreements that are linked to Iran's ratification of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential developments, said yesterday that the move was part of retaliatory measures announced by Iran that have left the International Atomic Energy Agency with only the most basic means to monitor Iran's nuke activities.
It came as Iran's president suggested his country might even pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which North Korea left three years shortly before it went public with its nuclear weapons programme.
With most surveillance equipment and seals from Iran's nascent uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz now removed - and Iran recently ending the agency's rights to in-depth nuclear probes at short notice - the IAEA has few means to monitor the progress of Tehran's enrichment efforts, which can create either nuclear fuel or the fissile core of warheads.
It also is crippled its efforts to look for secret sites and experiments that could be linked to nuclear arms.
The agency still has some seals and equipment at Natanz and Isfahan, where Iran is converting raw uranium into the feedstock gas for enrichment under basic agreements that are linked to Iran's ratification of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
posted by Marko at 2/12/2006 09:19:00 AM
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