Unofficial translation from Russian

Alexander Yakovenko, the Official Spokesman of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Answers a Question from Russian and Foreign Media Regarding the Adoption by IAEA of a Resolution Concerning Iran's Implementation of Its Safeguards Agreement Pursuant to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

Question: On September 12 a session of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted a resolution concerning Iran's implementation of its Safeguards Agreement Pursuant to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Please comment on the adoption of this decision.

Answer: The resolution is based on the provisions of the IAEA Director General's report on questions pertaining to Iranian nuclear programs. It notes that the Agency in Iran has carried out work on the removal of a number of gaps that had existed with regard to Iran's informing the Agency about the activities subject to accounting under the Safeguards Agreement. Simultaneously the resolution expresses serious concern over the uncertainties still remaining on that score. The Board of Governors called upon Teheran within the shortest possible time to present the fullest information concerning all the aspects of its past and present nuclear activities.

The most important thing in the resolution is the clear, straightforward, but respectful signal that it sends to Iran about the necessity to continue and expand its cooperation with the Agency and to ensure complete transparency of its nuclear program. We are confident that such cooperation is in the interests of Iran itself. And it is therefore in the interests of Iran to accede to the Additional Protocol to the Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, which would be a good confidence-building measure, a demonstration of openness with respect to nuclear activities (incidentally, a confidence-building measure which has already been introduced in their countries by dozens of non-nuclear-weapon states parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty). It is in the interests of Iran in cooperation with the Agency, to which all the countries parties to the Treaty, including Iran, have entrusted control activity under the Treaty, to clear up questions still outstanding in a constructive and quick manner, thus confirming the peaceful character of its programs in the nuclear energy field.

We regard the resolution as a Board-formulated plan of work between the IAEA and Iran necessary for urgent clarification of the questions still left open. We would like to hope that in just this way - seriously and constructively - it will be regarded, including by Teheran. The plan is not an ultimatum and was therefore approved without a vote by the Board of Governors.

We hope that by the Board's next session it will be possible to note serious progress in the implementation of the measures proposed in the resolution, and the question will then be set back from a plane of political debates on the track of the Agency's normal work in one of its member countries - in Iran. Same way as it daily takes place in a large number of countries of the world.