ARABS-UN - Oct. 31 - Iran Gets List Of Uranium Demands.

The IAEA has sent Iran a detailed list of demands aimed at ending its uranium enrichment programme (but diplomats expect only slow progress on the issue despite hopes an agreement will be signed next week to allow intrusive inspections of Iran's nuclear sites). The Oct.31 deadline passes for Iran to give the IAEA a detailed account of how it assembled its nuclear programme). IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei  says: "Iran has submitted what [it] assured me to be a comprehensive and accurate declaration" of its nuclear programme. (Iran is to send a letter of intent to the IAEA early next week, committing itself to the Additional Protocol, allowing IAEA inspections of its sites. Iran is still discussing with the IAEA the activities it will halt as part of its agreement reached on Oct. 21 to suspend uranium enrichment. During negotiations in Tehran last week, the FMs of the UK, France and Germany made clear all activities related to the enrichment programme had to be suspended. The Secretary General of Iran's Supreme Council of National Security, Hassan Rohani, eventually agreed to this. In a letter to the Iranian authorities sent on Oct. 29, the IAEA said Iran must suspend uranium enrichment; suspend the installation and operation of centrifuges; suspend laser enrichment; and suspend any construction of plutonium separation capabilities. But a senior official close to the negotiations says : "We have yet to see anything being suspended, and the acid test will be in the implementation". The agreement reached by Rohani with the European FMs is significant because Iran's security council includes both reformers and conservatives, who achieved consensus on the nuclear issue. However, popular sensitivity to the nuclear question in Iran remains strong. Negotiators are aware that suspension of the enrichment programme will depend on the Iranian leadership portraying any agreement as being in Iran's national interest. Thousands of Iranian hardliners demonstrated in several cities on Oct.31 against the government's actions. The focus of conservative anger has been on the agreement to sign the Additional Protocol, regarded as allowing foreigners to pry into issues that have been portrayed as undermining the country's sovereignty).