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Tehran downplays IAEA aid cut
STILL STANDING:
The Iranian ambassador to the nuclear watchdog said that only the unimportant programs had been affected and that the relationship was still on
AFP, TEHRAN
Sunday, Feb 11, 2007, Page 6
Iran downplayed a decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to halve its aid programs to Tehran, insisting 90 percent of the projects "still stand," local media reported yesterday.
"Despite US attempts to stop Iran and IAEA cooperative projects, more than 90 percent of these projects still stand," the deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Saeedi, told the state news agency IRNA.
In report on Friday, the IAEA said it had halted almost half of its aid programs to Iran as part of UN sanctions imposed to press Tehran to allay fears it seeks nuclear weapons.
Out of 55 national and regional projects that the IAEA has with Iran, 22, or 40 percent, were either totally or partially frozen.
"Only the insignificant and the unimportant percentage of the Iran and IAEA cooperative projects have been eliminated," Saeedi said, adding that these projects "will be examined in future IAEA sessions, part by part."
But Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh denounced the new IAEA measures, saying they "sabotage the position of the agency and dissuade [countries] from cooperating with this organization."
"We condemn the architects of [UN] Resolution 1737 who caused such measures," he told IRNA.
Friday's IAEA report by its chief Mohamed ElBaradei came ahead of a meeting of the agency's 35-country board of governors in March that will review aid, as well as another report by ElBaradei on whether Iran is honoring UN calls for it to suspend sensitive nuclear fuel work.
Although the measures have been taken, the IAEA's board of governors could alter them when it reviews the report in the meeting in Vienna starting on March 5.
The UN Security Council on Dec. 23 imposed sanctions on Iran for continuing to enrich uranium and called for cuts in the IAEA's aid to the Iranian nuclear program.
The West, led by the US, accuses tehran of seeking nuclear weapons. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful ends.
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