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UN to study Iran nuclear dossier before acting

Independent
By Vanessa Gera in Vienna
01 November 2003

A deadline for Iran to prove that it was not building nuclear weapons expired yesterday. But the UN agency which imposed the deadline said that it would not take action as it was still analysing documents which were submitted on 23 October by Tehran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), based in Vienna, gave Iran until 31 October to prove that its nuclear activities were for the generation of electricity. The US claims that Tehran is building a weapons arsenal.

Iran submitted a dossier to the IAEA containing information about its nuclear programme. Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the agency, said that it was unable to judge whether the country had complied with the demands because experts had not yet verified the report.

She said: "There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done."

Mark Gwozdecky, an agency spokesman based in New York, said that experts were matching information provided by Iran with evidence collected on the ground. "Iran says they've done what's called for under the resolution," he said. "While it looks comprehensive at first glance, we don't take anything at face value, and our people are in Iran visiting sites, interviewing personnel, taking samples. We're using satellite imagery, all with a view to coming up with our own independent conclusion on the accuracy of their declaration."

He said that the findings would be in a report which was issued to IAEA board members on 10 November

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=459360

Iran catches $3.7b direct investment from overseas

Saturday, November 01, 2003 - ©2003 IranMania.com

TEHRAN, Oct. 31, (Mehr News Agency) – Although foreign investors have invested some $50 billion after the 1979-1987 Iraq-Iran imposed war, direct investment seems to be crawling at a snail's pace during the said period.

Official statistics show that over the past ten years, $3.7 billion has been directly invested in Iran, 53 percent and 29 percent by European and the American countries, respectively and the rest by the Asians.

Fars News Agency quoted Deputy Head of Economic and Finance Minister Mohammad Khazaie as saying that $2.3 billion of the whole investment (70 percent) has been gathered from 1993 to 2002 and $1.4 billion during past ten months.

33, 20, 14, and 8 percent have been allocated to oil and gas, tire and plastic, basic metal industries, and metal products for the use of auto industry, respectively while engineering and planning, construction materials, and drinking industry could grab 9, 6, and 5 percent of the mentioned investment, according to the official.

The Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, which prohibited trade with Iran and Libya, postponed some new investment in Iranian oil and gas fields and imposed modest costs on the Iranian economy.

Besides barring trade with Iran, the United States passed a law that imposes sanctions on foreign companies that invest $20 million or more a year in Iran's oil and gas sectors, imposing costs on U.S. firms that would normally compete for sales to and investments in Iran as well.

A 1997 study by the Institute for International Economics showed that since 1970, unilateral U.S. sanctions had achieved foreign policy goals only 13 percent of the time. The study also concluded that sanctions cost the United States $15 billion to $19 billion annually in potential exports.

The sanctions, begun initially a few years after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, have induced no significant changes in Iranian policy since even U.S allies are not interested in giving up Iran’s virgin market.

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