TEHRAN -- Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, has said that the negotiations between Iran and the IAEA are normal and within the framework of the nuclear safeguards agreement.

“These negotiations are focused on the arrangement of the surprise inspections… (and) are within the normal framework of the safeguards agreement and show Iran’s cooperation with the agency on the normal inspections,” he told ISNA on Tuesday.
Commenting on the claims by some Western countries that there is documentation which proves Iran’s nuclear activities have been diverted, he said Iran has asked to see the documents.
“If the Western countries intended to hand over the original documents or copies of them to Iran, they would have done so by now,” he said.
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has urged Western countries to produce the documents but they have refused.
Meanwhile, Rahman Qahrampour of the Expediency Council stated that there will be more surprise inspections in the future because Iran has increased the number of its centrifuges from 3000 to 7000.
“According to the additional protocol, the surprise inspections cover the complete process of the nuclear fuel cycle from the beginning to the end… Thus, within the framework of the additional protocol, the range of surprise inspections becomes wider,” he told ISNA.
Qahrampour added, “The surprise inspections are in both (the additional protocol and the safeguards agreement). The difference is that in the additional protocol, the inspections include non-announced centers. But, in the safeguards agreement the inspections only include the announced activities and nuclear facilities.”
However, the surprise inspections in the additional protocol do not mean that the IAEA can inspect everywhere; rather, “when we say non-announced centers, it means centers where the agency must prove nuclear activities are conducted,” he noted