Azerbaijan, Baku, April 16/ Trend, T. Konyayeva /
Iran has the right to deny IAEA inspectors' access to the gas centrifuge manufacturing center, said Shannon N. Kile, Senior Researcher of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) responsible for nuclear weapons non-proliferation and export control.
"Currently, Iran doesn't implement the Additional Protocol to its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement of the IAEA," Kile said. It used it in 2003-2006 but it has never ratified the Additional Protocol. So, it has never entered it into force. This means that Iran is not obliged to give IAEA inspectors access to, for example, the centrifuge manufacturing center and other facilities where declared nuclear materials are not presented", Kile told Trend by telephone.
Earlier this week, Iran's Envoy to the IAEA Ali Askar Soltaniye said Iran is not obliged to give IAEA inspectors access to centers that manufacture centrifuge spare parts, including Iranian facility TABA.
Having noted that such inspection is not under the general terms of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, Soltaniye stressed that only completed gas centrifuges should be subject to inspection, which is done regularly.
The Iranian Envoy also confirmed his country's readiness to cooperate comprehensively with the IAEA and hold talks with the "six" (UN Security Council's five permanent members- the UK, China, Russia, the US and France) plus Germany if Iran's rights are observed and in accordance with the terms of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement.
The Additional Protocol is a legal document giving IAEA inspectors additional powers apart from that specified by the main guarantees agreement.
The document also obliges countries to provide more detailed documentation of construction of new nuclear facilities yet when they are under the stage of designing. Undeclared inspections will become possible if the IAEA has any doubts. The additional protocols are signed between the IAEA and countries individually.
At the end of 2003 the Foreign Chiefs of France, Germany and the UK convinced Iran to sign the Additional Protocol. However, the document has never been ratified by the Parliament of Iran.
On February 4, 2006, the IAEA Executive Board took the decision (with 27 votes pro) to inform the UN Security Council of the urgent steps Iran should take to lift concerns over the military orientation of its nuclear program. On the same day, President of Iran Mahmud Ahmadinejad ordered to stop the Additional Protocol to the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement.
On April 8, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) released the report saying that they had evidence that Iran has a secret centrifuge construction program under way at the TABA plant. The NCRI claims the facility is masked as a tool manufacturing plant, according to the Washington Post.
The NCRI said a complex of three buildings in the territory of a small industrial center is the main center manufacturing centrifuge spare parts, which has been operational since 2006. A highly secured facility is called TABA.
"The facility manufactured thousands of uranium centrifuge spare parts over the past 4.5 years", the report said.
On April 9, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi rejected NCRI claims that Iran is manufacturing centrifuge details secretly.
Iran claims it needs to manufacture centrifuges to enrich uranium used as the fuel for a 300-megawatt light water reactor in Darhoven, southwest of Iran, and for the first nuclear power plant in Bousher.
Gas centrifuges with the speed of rotation of around 60,000 a minute are used in the field of nuclear researches for uranium isotopes fission. A centrifuge consists of 180 spare parts, most of which, including cranes, rotors and pressure sensors were bought by Iran from foreign black markets earlier.
In January, Ali Bagiri, Deputy Secretary General of Iran's Higher National Security Council in charge of foreign policy, stressed that Iran plans to start manufacturing centrifuges using domestic technologies only.