MOSCOW, September 6 (RIA Novosti) - By the end of the week, the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency of the Russian Federation will formulate its position on the report of the IAEA's Board of Governors about Iran's nuclear programme. The Federal Agency's press service informed of this Monday.
A session of the IAEA's Board of Governors, the Agency's supreme executive body, will be held at its Vienna headquarters on September 13-17. Among other issues, the session will discuss Iran's nuclear programme. Representatives of Russia's Federal Nuclear Energy Agency will also take part in the session.
Last week, Russian experts received the Board of Governors' report to familiarise themselves with the document and take a decision on it. A resolution on Iran's nuclear programme is to be adopted on the basis of a consensus following the discussion of the report, the press service's representative said.
According to a Russian Agency's spokesman, the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency's position on the report about Iran's nuclear programme will hardly be unexpected. "We have a common stand on Iran, we fully support the IAEA, and Russia's position on the report will comply with the IAEA's position," the spokesman said.
On June 18, 2004, the Board of Governors adopted a resolution on the report of Mohammed ElBaradei, IAEA's director general, on Iran's compliance to the nuclear security standards as following from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The resolution pointed out that Iran took a decision (on the voluntary basis) to terminate its uranium enrichment and reprocessing programmes and allow the IAEA to carry out inspections in Iran to verify this process.
At the same time, the document stressed that Iran's cooperation with the IAEA was incomplete and not as active as it should be, in particular as regards the inspection of the P-2 centrifuges which could be used for uranium enrichment. Members of the Boardof Governors called on Teheran to step up its cooperation with the IAEA so as to convince the world community of the peaceful characters of Iran's nuclear programmes.
The resolution does not contain a provision on the transfer of the Iranian nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council for its consideration and possible adoption of anti-Iranian sanctions. However, the question of the closure of the Iranian nuclear dossier (as it was previously done as regards the Tripoli regime), for which Teheran is stubbornly pressing now, remains open. This will be a central issue at the Board of Governors's session which will start work on September 13 and at the IAEA's General Conference to be held on September 20-24.
