Iran grants inspectors greater access to reactor

An agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency opens a major nuclear facility at Arak to inspection. It doesn't address a uranium-enrichment site that is the main issue between Tehran and the West.
By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer

11:24 AM PDT, July 13, 2007

CAIRO — Iran has agreed to grant international inspectors greater access to a major nuclear facility, the United Nation's atomic energy watchdog announced today.

Under the terms of the agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, inspectors will be granted access to the heavy water reactor at Arak by the end of the month. The inspectors previously had been barred from the remote facility in the mountains of western Iran.

Heavy water reactors like the one in Arak produce isotopes used in medicine and for other peaceful purposes. But they also produce plutonium, which can be used for the core of nuclear warheads.

The Arak site was one of two previously hidden nuclear research areas exposed in 2002, purportedly by an Iranian exile group.

The atomic agency also announced that Iran had agreed on unspecified inspection "safeguards" for the nuclear fuel enrichment plant near the Iranian city of Natanz and a new roster of inspectors to enter the country.

Today's agreement doesn't address Iran's continued enrichment of uranium at Natanz, the main issue of contention between Tehran and the West. But a diplomat close to the inspection agency said the agreement might show a new willingness by the Iranians to be more transparent.

"It is not insignificant as long as the promises are kept," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized discuss the matter with the media.

"It does go to the heart of the agency's concerns with regard to the Iran file," he said. "The caveat, of course, is that what is promised is delivered."

Iran and the agency also agreed to meet early next month to resolve questions regarding Iran's past plutonium experiments. In a statement last month, the agency expressed frustration at its inability "to resolve outstanding issues relevant to the nature and scope of Iran's nuclear program" or confirm that Iran was not engaged in nuclear activities deemed illegal under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which Iran signed.

The agreement follows a meeting last month between International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei and Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator and a rival to conservative Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Another rival to the controversial president, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, complained to worshipers during prayers today that Iran had been unjustly prevented from obtaining nuclear technology.

"As a signatory to the NPT, they should have even assisted us to develop our enrichment facility," he told worshipers. "We are not allowed by our Islamic faith and code of ethics to use weapons of mass destruction against people."

daragahi@latimes.com

Special correspondent Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran contributed to this report.