MOSCOW. Sept 15 (Interfax-AVN) - Moscow has positively assessed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution that urges Iran to promptly expand cooperation with the agency on all issues of its nuclear program.
"This is not an ultimatum, but a serious and respectful call for Iran to cooperate with the IAEA, in order to do away with remaining questions of the agency in connection with its peaceful nuclear programs. Iran should do so without delay," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak told Interfax on September 13.
"It is in Iran's interests to ease these concerns and prove the peaceful nature of its programs," Kislyak noted.
"We hope Teheran will constructively and seriously take this call for cooperation with the agency. This would improve the conditions for Iran's international ties in the sphere of peaceful use of nuclear energy, including with Russia," he said.
The resolution is "a sort of working plan for cooperation between Iran and the IAEA to ease all these concerns," he said.
"We hope that both the IAEA and Iran will treat such decisions constructively and seriously, and the remaining problems will be resolved within the next few months," he said.
"It should become possible to record serious progress in this direction" at the next IAEA session in November, he said. Political debates on the issue should stop and it should become part of the agency's routine work with a member-country of the Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, he said.
In the resolution, Iran is urged to join the additional protocol to the agreement on guarantees with the IAEA, Kislyak said. "This useful step can be made in the near future," he noted.