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IAEA chief denies Iran influenced reports
UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei has denied charges that he collaborated with Iran ahead of publishing written reports on his investigation of the Islamic republic's controversial nuclear program. Mr ElBaradei says members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are never shown reports on individual members, "not the least of course an inspected country".He was reacting to news reports that he had heeded Iranian demands to drop mentions of IAEA requests to visit the Parchin military site and Iran's use of the sensitive material beryllium in a report he had made to the IAEA board in September. The United States wants the IAEA to take Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. The US alleges that Iran is running a covert nuclear weapons program. But Mr ElBaradei says the "jury is still out" on whether Iran's program is peaceful or not. Mr ElBaradei characterised as "gutter accusations" reports that he gives Iran advance looks at his reports. The reports are filed ahead of IAEA board of governors meetings that decide how tough the agency will be on Iran over its nuclear program. He says "we don't leak (special IAEA reports on Iran) to any single person outside the 10 or 20 people who are involved in the process" of drafting the text at IAEA headquarters. "We don't negotiate our report . . . at the end of the day not a single paragraph is shown to any single country until the report is out," Mr ElBaradei said. He says the IAEA did not "even discuss" the report ahead of time with Iran beyond technical requests for information. Posted by: God Save The World 2004-12-05 |
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