At a news conference here, Amano was quizzed about US diplomatic cables leaked by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks which said that a top official of the International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguards department had briefed US diplomats on returning from an inspection of a nuclear site in Iran.

Amano insisted it was "inappropriate" for him to comment on the content of the Wikileaks report directly.

The diplomatic cables were "internal documents that were leaked from a member state and I do not think it is appropriate for me to make a comment," Amano said.

But when asked about a diplomatic cable dating from December 2009 which said that IAEA safeguards official Herman Nackaerts had briefed the US mission after returning from a trip to Iran, Amano said: "Having communication with member state is part of our daily professional work. There is nothing wrong (in that)."

Nevertheless, he insisted that such communication did not mean the IAEA had passed on confidential information about Iran's nuclear programme to Tehran's arch-foe, the United States.

"We'll take up complicated issues, sensitive issues, of course, but within the limit of not sharing confidential information," Amano said.

"That instruction is given fully to the staff."

Pressed later on whether briefing a member country about the outcome of an inspection before releasing the information to the IAEA's board of governors could constitute a breach of confidentiality, Amano replied: "I need to (put) that question to the lawyers."

The Japanese diplomat, who has headed the Vienna-based watchdog for a year, insisted that he was impartial, even though a separate WikiLeaks cable revealed that the US believed he sided firmly with Washington on the Iran issue.

"Everything in my reports are facts and I will continue to make my reports based on the facts," he said.

Asked to sum up his first year in office, Amano said: "I'm relatively satisfied that I did everything I could do to discharge my responsibility as director general of the IAEA.

"I behaved myself on my professional conscience, I tried as hard to be as factual as possible and I maintain good communication with member states, not only with the United States, but with Iran, with all of the countries. There's nothing wrong to have good communication with member states," Amano said.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News