Iran Building 3,000 Advanced Centrifuges, IAEA Calls for Immediate Access to Parchin

Local Editor

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran [AEOI] Fereydoun Abbasi revealed Sunday that his country is building 3,000 new-generation uranium enrichment centrifuges.

"The construction of the final production line of these centrifuges has concluded and the earlier generations of these centrifuges that have a low efficiency will soon be phased out," Abbasi said.

The Iranian private sector has successfully designed 360-megawatt nuclear power reactors, Abbasi said, adding, "We are ready to cooperate with foreign parties in the construction of power reactors and so far we have had proposals from Russia and some Western countries in this regard."

The AEOI chief also said that Iran will announce other new achievements in the future as "political backup" in the next rounds of talks with the P5+1 group of world powers.
Iran and the P5+1 agreed to convene in Almaty again on April 5-6 for the next round of the negotiations after holding expert-level talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul on March 17-18.

"Our political team should head into the March negotiations with specialized backup and we have enough achievements in this regard," Abbasi noted.
Iran's positions in the negotiations are clear, he said, adding, "Iran wants the nation's nuclear rights to be observed and that no commitment more than those included in signed treaties be demanded of us."

Meanwhile, the head of the UN atomic agency called Monday on Iran to allow immediate access to the Parchin base.
Yukiya Amano said that this should be granted "without further delay" and without waiting for stalled talks to conclude an agreement on investigating other alleged "weaponization" activities.
"I request Iran once again to provide access to the Parchin site without further delay, whether or not agreement has been reached on the structured approach," Amano told the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors meeting.

According to the text of his remarks at the closed-door gathering, he said: "Providing access to the Parchin site would be a positive step which would help to demonstrate Iran's willingness to engage with the Agency on the substance of our concerns."
Amano further stated that "negotiations must proceed with a sense of urgency" and that he "would like to report real progress by the next meeting of the next IAEA board meeting in June."
Tehran says that the IAEA's conclusions about the "possible military dimensions" of its program are based on flawed information from Western and "Israeli" spy agencies.

It denies working or ever having worked on nuclear weapons and says that no nuclear activities have taken place at the Parchin base near Tehran and that therefore the IAEA has no right to conduct inspections there.
The IAEA visited the site twice in 2005 but says that since then it has obtained additional indications of activity there that make it want to go back.
IAEA chief further stated that negotiations with Iran must proceed with "sense of urgency".


Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org