Washington: The Obama administration has
said that Iran is not complying with the requirements of the
United Nations and obligations of the International Atomic
Energy Agency with regard to its uranium enrichment programmes
and safeguards at nuclear facilities.
Noting that the administration is in touch with IAEA and
P-5 Plus partners, a senior US official hoped that the that
the proposed agreement for the shipment of LEU from Iran will
be accepted by Tehran.
"The recent report underscores that Iran still refuses to
comply fully with its international nuclear obligations,"
State Department spokesperson, Ian Kelly, said on Tuesday.
"Instead, it is expanding its work in uranium enrichment
and heavy water-related activities," Kelly, said, adding that
it has conducted a multi-year effort to construct a
clandestine enrichment facility in contravention of the UN
Security Council requirements and IAEA obligations.
Kelly said that the administration is still waiting for a
formal response from Tehran to the proposal that the IAEA had
put forward to enrich its LEU outside of Iran.
"We hope that they will provide a formal response, but
the failure to provide a response to this and its overall
non-compliance, as laid out in the IAEA agreement, frankly
doesn`t give us a whole lot of confidence that they will
respond formally," he said.
"But we are still not prepared to close the door on that
possibility right now," the spokesperson said.
The IAEA report, he said, noted that Iran`s failure to
inform the IAEA of the facility near Qom is inconsistent with
its safeguard obligations, and underlined the fact that its
failure to declare this facility reduces confidence about the
absence of other nuclear facilities that have not been
declared to the IAEA.
The report noted that for over a year, Iran had refused
the IAEA’s request to provide substantive explanations
regarding its past work to develop a nuclear warhead and other
possible military dimensions to its nuclear programme, Kelly
said.
"We continue to consult with our contacts in the P-5+1
context, and I don`t have anything to announce at this time.
But I mean, clearly, we are going to have to review the
bidding, given the fact that the – that Iran has not provided
us with a formal response," the spokesperson said.
As I said before, we are not prepared to actually
pronounce that they have rejected the deal because they
haven`t formally rejected the deal yet. But we will continue
to consult with them, he said.
Bureau Report
