IAEA: Iran nuke talks still open
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency held out hope Sunday that arms inspectors may not have reached an impasse with Iran on its nuclear program.
On Saturday, the IAEA called on Iran to clarify outstanding issues related to its nuclear program by November 25, the date of its next scheduled meeting, and to freeze all work on enrichment and centrifuges.
That brought this apparent rebuff Sunday from Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani: "In Iran's opinion, the demand of IAEA is illegal and cannot bring new obligations for Iran.
"It means that the IAEA board of governors has not the right to oblige a country to suspend its activities."
But the IAEA's soft-spoken Mohamed ElBaradei refused to take the bait.
"I'm not sure Iran, reading what Iran have stated today, they have rejected it," he told CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, from IAEA headquarters in Vienna.
"They have said it is not a legal obligation, but it is a confidence-building measure. I take that to be correct. I mean, the board said this is a confidence-building measure. We should not really tinker around about legalities."
ElBaradei said time remained for negotiation.
"I'm supposed to present a report by the end of November to our governing board, so I still have couple of months."
ElBaradei said he did not consider Iran's nuclear program to represent an immediate threat. "It's really a question of intention," he said.
Rohani said Iran has already volunteered to suspend the last stage of enrichment -- and would continue that suspension -- but would not halt its production of enriched uranium, which Iran insists is for generating power, not weapons.
But the international community is concerned because work on Iran's nuclear program -- which has been undeclared for decades -- has outstripped its work on electricity, "so there is really no urgency for Iran to continue with the speed it is going developing enrichment of uranium," ElBaradei said.
Enrichment is legal under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but it is the most controversial part of Iran's program since it can produce material for weapons.
The Bush administration has been pushing the agency to refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council, which can impose sanctions.
The United States Thursday reached agreement with key European allies, as well as Canada and Australia, on the IAEA resolution.
Regarding another major nuclear concern, ElBaradei said that what appeared to some observers to be a mushroom cloud spotted this month over North Korea does not appear to have been caused by a nuclear explosion, "but we cannot be 100 percent sure."
Pressed, ElBaradei said, "I am leaving the door open," that North Korea has tested a bomb. "I think I would like to go there. As long as we are not there, I cannot exclude the possibility," he said.
-- Journalist Kasra Naji and CNN State Department Producer Elise Labott contributed to this report
