IAEA delegation's visit signifies Iran's good intention

A senior Iranian parliamentarian described the visit to Iran by a delegation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a positive step proving Iran's good intention and defusing West's plots against Iran's nuclear program. A six-member delegation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headed by Herman Nackaerts arrived in Iran on Sunday. The visit came at the invitation of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). Speaking to FNA about the visit, member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Parviz Sorouri said that Iran's permission for the IAEA delegation's visit is "in fact a proof of Iran's good intention". The lawmaker said that the Western states are trying to portray Iran as a country which has closed its borders and is against talks or UN inspection. "Therefore, the permission for IAEA officials' visit and inspections is in fact a positive step towards defusing the West's plots and smear campaign," Sorouri stated. Nackaerts told reporters as he was about to depart from Vienna airport that the team will try to resolve all the outstanding issues with Iran. "We are looking forward to the start of a dialogue". Iran's Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asqar Soltaniyeh said on Friday that the main objective is to "thwart plots by enemies who are leveling unfounded allegations" against Iran and to prove that the country's nuclear program is transparent. Soltaniyeh said the visit by the IAEA deputy director general, who also heads the organization's department of safeguards, is aimed at negotiating issues of common interest between Tehran and the agency. Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path. Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of IAEA's questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities. A 2008 report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by the then Director-General, Mohamed ElBaradei, thanked Iran's honest cooperation in removing ambiguities about its past activities and confirmed that Iran has answered all the six outstanding questions of the world body about the nuclear material and activities that it had had in the past. The new director general, Yukiya Amano, released the UN nuclear watchdog's latest report on Iran's nuclear activities in November, while many even in the West believed that the report carried a US tone and wording on an IAEA paper. The western diplomats and sources had informed in October that the report would contain some documents which had been presented to the IAEA by certain western countries and would show that Iran is pursuing a military drive in its nuclear program. Consequently, Amano attached a 15-page annexation to his report which focused on the issue of Iran's alleged studies in the field of military nuclear activities. Diplomats in Tehran said Amano had received the last orders from Washington on the report during his trip to the US and that's why he shrugged off the demands by Russia, China and some European countries as well as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) member states to respect UN impartiality and adopt a fair approach towards Iran's nuclear issue in his report.