Moscow has begun to study the much-hyped report of the Director General of IAEA, Yukiya Amano, on Iran's nuclear program (INP). According to our first assessments, the report contains no fundamentally new information. It's a compilation of known facts to which a politicized ring is deliberately given. When there is no convincing evidence base, the authors embark on assumptions and suspicions, there is juggling of information to form impressions about the alleged presence of a military component in the INP. Such an approach can hardly be called professional and impartial. It invokes involuntary memories of the story about the "presence" of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime, which, it would seem, should have broken people of the manifestation of such imprudence.

We have found of greatest interest the really new elements of the report, confirming Tehran's readiness to proceed without delay to clarify the existing IAEA questions about the so-called possible research in a direct dialogue with the Agency. This is evidenced, in particular, by the visit, at Tehran's invitation, of IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts to a number of Iran's nuclear facilities on August 14-19, where access for Agency representatives had been closed. The readiness to proceed immediately to interaction with the Agency on this matter was also confirmed, as we know, in the letter of Fereidoun Abassi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, to Amano on 30 October. Why did the proposal turn out to be actually ignored by the Agency? Apparently, instead of giving the Iranians a chance to answer the questions posed, the a priori task was to deliver a guilty verdict.

We also have other questions. For example, on the basis of what information does the IAEA Secretariat make its far-reaching and unambiguous indictments? With what tools did they verify the authenticity of the information received? Instead of answers, member states of the IAEA Board of Governors are being invited to believe the report's conclusions based solely on its words.

In Russia, we are very concerned that the report is already being used as much as possible to undermine efforts by the international community for an early politico-diplomatic settlement of the situation around Iran's nuclear program. The further development of events could turn into a dangerous confrontational course. We see this as an attempt to also strike a blow to Russia's initiatives, which aim to promote the solution of the problem based on gradualism and reciprocity.

In the current difficult circumstances, we will continue to persistently advance our approaches forming a constructive alternative to the policy of pressure and confrontation.