The following is an edited transcript of remarks to the media today by Tero Varjoranta, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Safeguards:
"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. As I'm sure you all already know, we have issued the first status report today to the Board of Governors, showing the factual situation as of today in the country. We had a very busy weekend. The weekend in Iran went very well - good cooperation. We could do our work in a very effective manner. So if you have any questions at this point in time I can take a few before I have to go and continue the hard work that is only now beginning."
Q: Can you confirm that Iran has implemented what they have promised?
A: Yes, I can confirm that.
Q: Can you elaborate a little bit more on what you have confirmed?
A: Well, for example they have stopped producing the 20 percent uranium. They have also ceased to use the tandem configuration of centrifuges; in other words, the interconnections have been removed from the place. The dilution process of the 20 percent uranium has started and the conversion process of the same type of uranium is also ongoing. So these are a couple of major examples.
Q: Are the cascades previously used to enrich to 20 percent in Fordow now enriching to 3.5 percent instead, or have these cascades been idled?
A: Right now of course the situation is that the cascades are kind of taken out... so the production itself has stopped.
Q: What arrangements have been made for IAEA inspectors and increased access?
A: We have a very robust system in place with Iran. Nothing is dependent on one single thing only - we have different processes in place. As is the case with all safeguards approaches to any facility in the world, of course these details are something that we do not disclose.
Q: What is the extra cost?
A: We are expecting six million euros to be needed for this Joint Plan of Action for the next six months that has started now. That will roughly double the size of the inspection team that we have in place as of today.