IRAN SAYS UN’S BAN WELCOME TO VISIT NUCLEAR PLANTS

By NBF News

Iran on Tuesday said that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would be welcomed to visit nuclear plants during his attendance at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran.

“The UN secretary general, just like all the other guests at the NAM summit, is welcomed to visit Iran's nuclear plants,” Iran's envoy at the International Nuclear Agency (IAEA), Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, told reporters.

There had been reports by the Fars news agency and later also by state television that Ban would visit the uranium enrichment site of Natanz in central Iran while attending the NAM summit Thursday and Friday.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky in New York, however, denied the reports, saying there were no such plans for a visit of this kind by the secretary.

The spokesman added that “if the Iranian authorities prepare to give access to others, not least of course to those from the IAEA, that would be welcome.”

Without referring by name to the UN spokesman, Soltanieh said that the IAEA needed no special access to the nuclear sites “as all nuclear sites in Iran were under constant IAEA inspections”.

There was no official confirmation of the state media reports, but summit secretary Mehi Akhoundzadeh said that Ban would visit the city of Isfahan during his stay in Iran.

The Natanz enrichment site is located near Isfahan, as is Iran's uranium conversion site.  (dpa/NAN)