Non-aligned envoys tour Isfahan nuclear site

Isfahan: Envoys from the Non-Aligned Movement of developing nations were shown UN surveillance cameras while touring a nuclear site in Iran yesterday as part of Tehran's bid to be open about its disputed atomic programme.

The six NAM diplomats, accredited to the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, visited the site near the central Iranian city of Isfahan that converts uranium ore into feedstock uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas.

About 90 Iranian and foreign journalists were also shown round the site, where employees in white overalls and face masks feed uranium "yellow cake" into a conversion line.

"All these journalists can see and tell the world that Iran's activities are peaceful," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's IAEA envoy, said during the tour.

Soltanieh said the trip showed Iran's "transparency" and pointed out two IAEA cameras to monitor work in a room where UF6 is produced at the site, situated in a barren area southeast of Isfahan and surrounded by anti-aircraft guns.

The United States accuses Iran of secretly working to make atomic bombs under cover of a civilian nuclear programme to generate electricity. It has said putting Iran's nuclear activities on display would not build confidence abroad.

The envoys, who stay in Iran until tomorrow, are not due to visit the Natanz uranium enrichment site where UF6 gas is fed into centrifuges to make power plant fuel or, if greatly enriched, material for warheads.

'Publicity exercise'

The group comprises ambassadors from Egypt, Malaysia, Cuba, Algeria and Sudan, and a Syrian representing the Arab League.

"They are not technical people and will not be able to pass judgment on what is going on. This is a publicity exercise, that's the main point," a NAM ambassador in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, said ahead of the visit.

The IAEA says it needs more information about Iran's atomic work before it can give a clean bill of health and has urged Iran to reconsider a move to bar 38 out of 200 inspectors whose role is to check whether materials are diverted to bomb making.

Iran blocked the inspectors after the United Nations penalised Tehran last month for refusing to halt enrichment. The UN sanctions bar the transfer of sensitive materials and know-how to Iran's nuclear programme.

Iran has said it will soon start work to expand enrichment capacity at Natanz by adding 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium to the 350 or so experimental machines it now runs at the site.

It has not said when it might announce that expansion work has begun, but says it will hold nuclear celebrations during events to mark the 1979 Islamic revolution that run to February 11.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by Fars News Agency as saying February 11 would be a day to "prove the Iranian nation's obvious right" to nuclear technology. He also said Iran would announce "great achievements" in days but did not give details.

The United States has been ratcheting up pressure on Tehran to halt its nuclear work by imposing sanctions on two big banks and sending a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf.

Washington has said it wants diplomacy to end the standoff but has not ruled out military action if that fails. US officials dismiss speculation that it is planning a conflict.