TEHRAN -- Britain's foreign secretary urged Iran Monday to cooperate with the international community and allow more thorough inspections of its nuclear facilities to dispel suspicions that they could be used to develop nuclear weapons.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, speaking at a news conference during his brief visit, said Iran must "unconditionally and quickly" sign an additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that would permit unfettered inspections of its nuclear sites.
Straw, meeting with President Mohammad Khatami and other Iranian officials, tied to the signing of such a protocol the fate of a European Union trade pact, as well as the end of economic sanctions.
"If there is no signature, confidence will not be improved and the international community will be profoundly reluctant to lift the sanctions," he said.
Iran's leaders did not agree during Straw's visit to sign the protocol. Instead, Hassan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, told Straw that Iran would invite the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to return to Iran to clear up "technical problems" over international inspections, according to the official Iranian news agency.
Washington has alleged Iran's civilian energy program is a cover for an effort to produce nuclear weapons. The discovery of several previously undisclosed nuclear facilities last summer has fueled that suspicion and helped Washington to press its concerns on Europe and Russia.
After an IAEA team visited some of those sites, it reported in June that Iran had imported and processed nuclear material without notifying the commission.
The Bush administration has said that it considers a nuclear-armed Iran unacceptable, and that the IAEA's ability to monitor nuclear activities is compromised by Iran's unwillingness to sign the additional protocol.
Iran, despite growing criticism from the international community, has remained officially reluctant to permit full inspections. It also contends that the West is ignoring a portion of the nonproliferation treaty that grants signatories the right to pursue atomic energy for civilian purposes and obliges nuclear states to assist them in doing so.
Senior officials here say that they already allow adequate inspections of the country's nuclear program. But they appear ready to use the protocol as a bargaining chip for concessions on trade and other issues.
