Iran Allows Inspectors Access to One Site

After more than a year and a half of resistance, Iran has given inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency access to a razed military site, but it has failed to meet other demands under its international treaty obligations, officials knowledgeable about the inspections said Sunday.

The concession seemed aimed at derailing an American and European initiative to immediately send Iran's nuclear case for judgment by the United Nations Security Council.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the foreign ministers of Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany will meet in London on Monday to plot a joint strategy on how best to curb Iran's nuclear activities. Then on Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-country board will hold an emergency session in Vienna to decide whether and how the case should be considered by the Security Council.

But the limited cooperation given to the inspectors leaves open a number of major issues about the nature and scope of Iran's nuclear program that have been raised by the United States and Europe.

News of Iran's uneven cooperation came as the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, in an interview in Tehran on Sunday, reiterated Iran's position that it would not close down its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, as demanded by the United States, Russia, China, the Europeans and the atomic energy agency. Like other Iranian officials, he argued that Iran has only restarted nuclear research, a sovereign right it would never relinquish.

"Nuclear technology is the right of Iran," he said. "We can discuss about the way this right can be implemented, but realization of this right is not bound by any preconditions."

Iran's decision to allow inspectors into the razed military facility in Tehran, named Lavisan, followed repeated demands by the atomic energy agency for access and information since June 2004, several months after the site was dismantled, the officials said.

Inspectors were allowed to take environmental samples that they will examine for traces of uranium particles. They also examined equipment taken from the site when it was bulldozed, before it could be inspected, the officials said.

A report by the nuclear agency's director, Mohamed ElBaradei, in November 2004 said that the destruction of the site raised "the possibility of a concealment effort" by Iran to hide uranium-enrichment activities.

But the inspectors failed to persuade Iran to be more forthcoming on a number of other outstanding issues. That means that the agency will most likely deliver a mixed report to its board before the emergency session, the officials said. The officials were speaking on condition of anonymity under customary diplomatic rules.

"Some people will see this as an important step; others won't," said one diplomat familiar with the issue. "It can be said that this should have happened a year and a half ago. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done."

Iran's cooperation on the visit to Lavisan is certain to be seen as an inadequate gesture by the United States and its European allies, which believe that the Security Council must begin to pass judgment now on Iran for its nuclear behavior, most recently its reopening of its nuclear enrichment plant.

But the small steps by Iran may strengthen the position of Russia and China, which are resisting Security Council action and at the very least prefer to give Iran another month, as it was promised, to meet international demands.