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Russia urges Iran to implement UN resolutions

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Russia has urged Iran to comply with all UN Security Council resolutions and UN nuclear watchdog rulings on its nuclear program, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday.
MOSCOW, September 19 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has urged Iran to comply with all UN Security Council resolutions and UN nuclear watchdog rulings on its nuclear program, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday.

"We believe it is important that Tehran implement all measures that were previously formulated in decisions of the IAEA Board of Governors and then reinforced by UN Security Council resolutions," Andrei Nesterenko told a RIA Novosti news conference, commenting on the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors' report on Iran.

He said the measures are important for international confidence to be restored in the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program, which Western powers believe has military goals. The IAEA report was released on September 15.

Russia has been Iran's main backer in its civil nuclear power program, and has almost completed Iran's first nuclear plant, in Bushehr.

"As far as our position is concerned, we are still studying this document, and it will be discussed by the IAEA Board of Governors, whose session will start on September 22," the Russian diplomat said.

Nesterenko quoted the report as saying Iran must take certain transparency measures and implement an additional protocol to an agreement on guarantees for the IAEA, without which the agency will be unable to verify the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear activities.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday his country is undaunted by the possibility of new UN sanctions over its ongoing nuclear program.

France and Britain called for new UN sanctions against Iran following the recent IAEA report. The United States earlier issued a similar call for new sanctions against Tehran.

The Islamic Republic is currently under three sets of relatively mild UN Security Council sanctions for defying demands to halt uranium enrichment.

The IAEA report said Iran had not halted its uranium enrichment program and had increased the number of its uranium enrichment centrifuges from 3,300 to 3,820, and that work was under way to install another 2,000 at the Natanz enrichment plant.

However, Ahmadinejad said the report reaffirmed the peaceful nature of Tehran's nuclear program.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Thursday at a Paris meeting of EU foreign ministers that the IAEA report "isn't good for Iran," because it indicates that Iran has blocked efforts to investigate its nuclear program.

The IAEA wants Iran to clarify the suspected links between uranium enrichment and tests of high explosives and missile technology allegedly being developed by Iranian scientists by granting access to sites, documents and the relevant officials.

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