Brussels, 07/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed El-Baradei, welcomed on 5 January the effort made by Iran to honour its "commitment end November to suspend its uranium enrichment activities" and its promise to bring to an end its pre-enrichment conversion activity from February on. The products and the machines that are used in the conversion process will then come "under IAEA security", he said. Furthermore, after having refused to do so for nearly 8 months, Iran has agreed to allow the IAEA to soon inspect the Parchine military installations in the south-east of Teheran, where defence projects are carried out. The IAEA expresses an interest only in the presence of enriched uranium or plutonium on this site, but the United States suspects Iran of having conducted illegal experiments in Parchine with a view to manufacturing a nuclear bomb. Meetings between an Iranian delegation and IAEA officials is to be held today, Friday, in Vienna, to discuss the arrangements for inspecting the site.
On Thursday, President Chirac also warned Teheran about "betraying its commitments to renounce programmes for weapons of mass destruction". Only "the countries that honour their international commitments when it comes to non-proliferation and which show proof of the peaceful nature of their activities should be allowed to benefit from technologies to which international rules give them legitimate access", he pointed out, adding that "these principles will continue to guide the approach of three European countries - Germany, France and Great Britain - in the context of negotiations for a long term agreement with Iran".