According to the statement made by IAEA Director General Muhammed Elbaradei in Tokyo on Thursday and circulated by the agency's Vienna headquarters, Iran is to end all uranium-enrichment work, which can be seen as a step towards the international community's trust in Iran.
Last September the IAEA board of governors adopted a resolution demanding an end to the uranium-enrichment projects.
The agency's chief thinks that Iranian fulfilment of the board's consensus demand will confirm Iran's sincere desire for cooperation with the IAEA on the basis of providing it with exhaustive and transparent information on the entire range of the Iranian nuclear programmes, as well as its concrete steps towards fulfilment of the board's resolutions.
He also said that the matter of the Iranian nuclear dossier will be put on the agenda of sittings of the board, due to begin on November 25.
At the same time, Elbaradei has spoken up against submitting the nuclear dossier for consideration by the United Nations Security Council.
The Iranian nuclear dossier in its present form may not be submitted for UN Security Council consideration because a set of important questions has not yet been resolved. And besides, the IAEA has not yet got from Iran comprehensive answers to the set of questions put it.
As regards the position of Russia, Moscow invariably stresses: maintaining good relations with Teheran is an important aspect of Russia's national security, maintenance of peace and stability in the region, which lies close to the CIS southern borders. Therefore, one of the tasks assumed by Moscow is the depoliticization of the "Iranian question", as Teheran's nuclear programme is called in the political circles.
This is why Moscow as a partner will promote Iran's earliest ratification of the additional protocol to the IAEA guarantees agreement (the protocol is now undergoing a complex process of discussion in the majlis). Under the protocol, Teheran pledges, particularly, to freeze uranium-enrichment work in return for the closure of its nuclear dossier. This prospect would very much suit Moscow, for which the easing of tension around Iran's nuclear work would mean normal cooperation with Iran also in nuclear energy without the Western partners and the IAEA looking askance. More so that the ratification of the protocol on putting the nuclear programme onto technical rails, as well as the signing of the protocol on the return of wasted nuclear fuel for processing and storing in Russia, directly depend on the start of fuel shipments to the Bushehr nuclear power plant. At least, Moscow would not like marring relations with Washington, which is deeply vexed over Russian-Iranian cooperation. Meanwhile, the Bushehr first reactor is to be started up next year. Moreover, the Russian Nuclear Agency and the Iranian Nuclear Energy Organisation have recently begun talks on building the Bushehr second unit.
It seems that consultations between the chiefs of the sectoral agencies and bodies, including those dealing with nuclear energy, will be continued within the framework of the visit of Russian Foreign Ministry Sergei Lavrov to Teheran on October 10 through 12.
