Iran to Allow Int'l Nuke Plant Inspections; Some Want US Ties Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Reuters via Yahoo - May 27, 2002 Iran to Allow Inspections of Nuclear Plant By Tom Ashby LONDON (Reuters) - Iran said Monday that international inspectors would monitor the construction of a Russian-designed nuclear power plant, which the United States believes is the biggest nuclear proliferation threat worldwide. The head of Iran's parliamentary energy commission Hossein Aferideh said the International Atomic Energy Agency planned several visits over the course of the year to the Bushehr plant. "We are going to construct a power plant for the production of electricity under direct observation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) so this is peaceful application of nuclear energy," he told reporters at a conference in London. "We are members of the International Atomic Energy Agency so we are following the rules of the IAEA and investigators from the agency are visiting routinely Iran." The issue was the main sticking point during an otherwise harmonious summit last week between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bush has labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil," accusing Tehran of seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction and sponsoring terrorism. Aferideh said the plant was scheduled to come on line at the end of next year or early in 2004 to help satisfy growing Iranian electricity demand. "So far the project is going very well. We have more than 1,000 Russian experts there," he told reporters. Bush said last week on a European trip that Russia should be concerned about nuclear proliferation to Iran, which could one day view Moscow as an enemy. A senior Bush official on the same trip said Iran's nuclear program was the "single-most important proliferation threat there is." The IAEA, an arm of the United Nations, said it was already advising on safe construction of the plant, though full inspections under a "safeguards agreement" dating from 1974 would not begin until nuclear material was delivered. "The IAEA has visited the site, but regular IAEA inspections will begin with the initial receipt of nuclear material at the facility," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told Reuters. "That should call for about four to six inspections per year." The IAEA safeguards agreement requires that a country declare all civilian nuclear material and permit regular inspections by the agency. Each visit from the Vienna-based IAEA would consist of several inspectors and last a couple of weeks, Aferideh said. The site would be visited monthly, he added. "This is an Iranian right to produce electricity by nuclear power and nothing to do with non-peaceful application," Aferideh said. His comments followed a statement from Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi Sunday in which he told the official Iranian news agency that the construction of the reactor was under the IAEA's supervision. The IAEA's Fleming said Iran had not signed on to the so-called additional protocol which permits far more invasive inspections aimed at rooting out secret nuclear weapons programs, though the agency was urging Iran to adopt it. "If they do not sign up for this, we still know quite a bit. But we do not have the same access as we would with this additional protocol," she said. * Retuers via Yahoo - May 27, 2002 Iran "Reformers" Vow to Meet Again on U.S. Ties TEHRAN (Reuters) - Leading reformers in Iran's parliament vowed Monday to continue to explore ways of improving ties with the United States despite a judiciary ban. Reformist MPs allied with President Mohammad Khatami held a closed-door session last week to try to end two decades of hostilities between Tehran and Washington. The move drew sharp rebukes from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leading to threats by the hard-line judiciary to prosecute anyone who publicly advocates dialogue with the "Great Satan." About 2,000 hard-line clerics and Muslim seminary students staged a protest in the holy city of Qom Monday to back the supreme leader and the judiciary ban on contacts with the U.S. But reformers were unrepentant, pledging to pursue what they see to be in their country's "national interests." "The judiciary ban has no bearing on our decision. The Iran-U.S. meetings will continue," said Elaheh Kulai, a member of the parliamentary committee on national security. "We are trying to study the horizon for future ties and reach a clear understanding of the situation," she told Iran's IRNA news agency. Khamenei, known for his tough line toward the United States, has until now been the only one in Iran with the authority to pursue contacts with the United States. But the reformist-dominated parliament, fighting for greater freedoms and democracy, has tried to assert itself and enter realms traditionally controlled by the powerful clergy and off-limits to elected bodies. Koulai said Mohammad Javad Larijani, a prominent rightist theoretician, and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi were expected to attend the closed-door meetings Tuesday and next week. Reformist deputies insist they should be allowed to meet U.S. congressmen to resolve differences 23 years after the two states severed ties in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution. They hope an ease in U.S. pressure and sanctions may help the Iranian economy by paving the way for foreign investment. "Because of U.S. sanctions we have a lot of problems and are deprived of modern technology. Even our trade ties with Europe are in danger," MP Ali Zafarzadeh told ISNA news agency. "We have to fine-tune our behavior in a way that would benefit our people. We can negotiates with America while thinking about our interests," he said. But conservatives fear Iran would lose face by approaching the United States, at a time of growing U.S. belligerence. President Bush has called Iran part of an "axis of evil," accusing it of seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytmid-05.27.02-16:03:55-21532