Iran's President Issues Permission for UN Chief's Visit to N. Facilities

Salehi made the remarks on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) underway in Tehran on Wednesday.

"UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's tour of Iran's nuclear sites has been planned, and the visit will be done in case of his personal willingness," Salehi told reporters here in Tehran on Wednesday.

He added that Iran has made the necessary arrangements for the NAM leaders' visit to different Iranian cities, including a tour of Natanz nuclear facilities, as well.

Ban Ki-moon arrived in Tehran minutes ago to attend the 16th heads-of-state summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and confer with Iranian officials on different regional and international developments.

Earlier, Iranian officials had said that Ban Ki-moon will visit Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility on the sidelines of his presence at the Tehran summit.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for International Affairs Mehdi Akhoundzadeh told FNA that "the UN secretary-general will visit Isfahan province during his stay in Iran", while other sources said his presence in Isfahan will be aimed at a visit to the Natanz facility.

Meantime, participants in the NAM meeting in Tehran are due to go on a tour of Iranian nuclear sites and facilities on the sidelines of the gathering.

Uranium enrichment has been a bone of contention in the nuclear raw between Iran and the US-led West in recent years. NAM, as the largest grouping of countries outside the United Nations which includes two-third of the world nations, has always stressed its support for Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, including enrichment.

Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.

Tehran has dismissed the West's demand as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.

Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.
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