Iran president appointed new nuclear chief

Tehran, Iran, July 29 — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has appointed a new chief for the country's nuclear program, following the abrupt resignation of its veteran head.

Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's former envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, is replacing Gholam Reza Aghazadeh as the new vice president and the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ahmadinejad said in provincial trip to Mashhad.

Officials gave no reason for Aghazadeh's resignation, but he has long been close to reformist opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims to be the victor in the June 12 presidential elections and has called Ahmadinejad's government illegitimate. Also, some sources said that personal reasons were the primary cause of Aghazadeh's resignation.

Salehi's most high-profile moment came in 2003 when 18 years of Iran's clandestine nuclear activities were exposed, putting Iran's nuclear issue at the top of the IAEA Board of Governors agenda.

In December 2003, Salehi signed an additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty under former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, which enabled IAEA inspectors to search Iranian nuclear facilities without notice and without restriction.

Ahmadinejad later stopped the intrusive inspections in protest of Iran's referral to the U.N. Security Council, which subsequently imposed sanctions against the country for refusing to halt its controversial uranium enrichment program.

Salehi holds a doctorate in nuclear physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States. He was also associate professor and chancellor at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.

His predecessor, Aghazadeh, is widely respected in Iran as the father of the nation's nuclear program.

In his 12 years on the job, Aghazadeh pushed steadily ahead with the nuclear program, which the West fears is aimed at developing a nuclear weapon. Iran denies that charge. In the past year, he announced several advances in manufacturing centrifuges, a key component of the enrichment program.

According to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Iran has nearly 5,000 centrifuges currently enriching uranium for use as a nuclear fuel and another 2,000 ready to begin.