Iran offers China experts a tour of nuclear facilities
Source: Agencies |
May 24, 2011, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IRAN has invited China to send experts to see its nuclear facilities, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in Beijing yesterday in a fresh bid to persuade the world its atomic activities should not attract sanctions.
"We said we are ready to receive experts from China, nuclear experts, to come and visit our nuclear installations in Iran," Salehi said, describing his meeting with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.
"Rarely any country in the world opens up its nuclear facilities and institutes to the outside world, but since we are certain of the peacefulness of our nuclear activity, we have extended this invitation to a friendly country like China," said Salehi, who previously ran Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.
The offer seemed similar to one that Iran made in January to open its nuclear sites to envoys from Russia, China, the European Union and other governments.
None of the four Western nations seeking to resolve the nuclear dispute - the United States, Britain, Germany and France - received an invitation at that time.
But Salehi said yesterday that all members of the "P5 plus 1" negotiating group - China, Russia, the US, France, Britain and Germany - could take up this latest offer.
"We extend the same invitation to the five plus one, if they want to come and see," he said at the China Institute of International Studies, a government-run think tank.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on Salehi's offer. But in January, China did not take up Tehran's offer.
The European Union yesterday expanded sanctions against Iran over worries about its nuclear program. Foreign ministers decided to impose an asset freeze and travel bans on several additional Iranian officials and more than 100 companies with links to the nuclear program.
"We said we are ready to receive experts from China, nuclear experts, to come and visit our nuclear installations in Iran," Salehi said, describing his meeting with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.
"Rarely any country in the world opens up its nuclear facilities and institutes to the outside world, but since we are certain of the peacefulness of our nuclear activity, we have extended this invitation to a friendly country like China," said Salehi, who previously ran Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.
The offer seemed similar to one that Iran made in January to open its nuclear sites to envoys from Russia, China, the European Union and other governments.
None of the four Western nations seeking to resolve the nuclear dispute - the United States, Britain, Germany and France - received an invitation at that time.
But Salehi said yesterday that all members of the "P5 plus 1" negotiating group - China, Russia, the US, France, Britain and Germany - could take up this latest offer.
"We extend the same invitation to the five plus one, if they want to come and see," he said at the China Institute of International Studies, a government-run think tank.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on Salehi's offer. But in January, China did not take up Tehran's offer.
The European Union yesterday expanded sanctions against Iran over worries about its nuclear program. Foreign ministers decided to impose an asset freeze and travel bans on several additional Iranian officials and more than 100 companies with links to the nuclear program.
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