Iran rejects Bush call on fighting spread of WMDs (0830 PST)
HiPakistan.com
2.14.2004
TEHRAN: Iran said Friday it favoured the elimination of weapons of mass destruction but criticised US President George W. Bush's call for the international community to strengthen the fight against the spread of such weapons.
Bush "speaks as if the United States should decide for the rest of the world and the international community. We reject this," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a statement received by.
The US president on Wednesday cited Iran when he proposed that countries being investigated for violations of rules of non-proliferation should not be allowed on the governing council of the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"Those actively breaking the rules should not be entrusted with enforcing the rules," Bush said, in an election-year speech.
Referring to the 1980-1988 war between Iran and neighbouring Iraq, Asefi pointed out that his country, which had been "victim of Iraqi chemical weapons
... favours the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction."
The Iranian spokesman termed Tehran's acquisition of uranian-enrichment technology a "great success" and said "Iran voluntarily accepted total and complete control by the IAEA".
In Rome on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi insisted that Tehran had a "legitimate right" to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes but denied it had any intention to develop nuclear weapons.
Kharazi was responding to questions from reporters after a senior US official alleged Iran was pursuing a programme to make nuclear weapons.
http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en53940&F_catID=&f_type=sourceEurope's nuclear deal with Iran faces collapse
Ian Traynor
Saturday February 14, 2004
The Guardian
A European agreement with Tehran aimed at settling the Iranian nuclear crisis and hailed as a breakthrough last year is now deadlocked and in danger of collapse.
Senior officials from Britain, Germany and France went to Vienna last week to negotiate with the Iranians and with Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The attempt to break the deadlock failed.
"There was no breakdown, but there was no breakthrough," said a well-informed diplomat. Since the talks aimed at securing a comprehensive freeze of Iran's uranium enrichment activities, further evidence has emerged that Iran is continuing to cover up elements of its nuclear programme despite its claims to have revealed all to the IAEA.
UN inspectors discovered designs for a centrifuge that can produce bomb fuel twice as fast as the machine the Iranians are currently assembling. The centrifuge designs were not reported by the Iranians, and constitute an apparent breach of their commitment to reveal all, although the significance of the finding is being played down by IAEA officials.
The new design is believed to have come from the Pakistani network masterminded by the disgraced scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Given that the Pakistanis also supplied Libya with a nuclear bomb blueprint, the assumption by IAEA investigators and western intelligence is that the same blueprint was made available to the Iranians.
The Americans, the Europeans, and officials at the Vienna agency are convinced that the Iranians have reneged on the deal.
"We're on a steep downward trajectory on Iran," warned Jon Wolfsthal, the US nuclear analyst and former Clinton administration department of energy official.
While the uranium enrich ment issue is one of the biggest bones of contention, a range of other questions are emerging about Iran despite its delivery in October of what purported to be a full and comprehensive accounting of its 20-year-old nuclear projects.
Questions also remain unanswered about the origins of traces of high-enriched uranium found by inspectors in the Iranian centrifuge equipment. In a study to be published next month, David Albright, the leading US nuclear analyst, says that Iran has still not answered key questions about its nuclear activities.
"Between 1993 and 1995, Iran received through middlemen enough components to build 500 centrifuges," he writes. "As of late January 2004, the manufacturer of these components has not been publicly identified. Iran appears so far to be protecting the supplier of these components."
Once in full swing, Mr Albright predicts, the Iranian centrifuges could be producing 500kg of weapons-grade uranium, or enough for up to 30 nuclear weapons a year.
Last October, Jack Straw and his German and French counterparts, Joschka Fischer and Dominique de Villepin, went to Iran to secure the Tehran declaration, hailed as a breakthrough for Europe and a signal to the Americans that mediation and diplomacy can deliver while bullying and threats can be counter-productive.
The negotiations were "very tense and difficult" and at one stage Mr Fischer threatened to walk out. The bargain struck in Tehran was that Iran would freeze its ambitious and extensive uranium enrichment activities in return for technology transfer for a civilian nuclear programme from Europe's three biggest generators of nuclear power - Britain, France and Germany.
But Dr ElBaradei said the Iranians were continuing enrichment activity and refusing to suspend the building of gas centrifuges, the machines that convert uranium gas into high-enriched bomb fuel or low-enriched fuel for nuclear power stations.
"They maintain the right to assemble centrifuges," he said.
Experts and diplomats fear that Iran is continuing to acquire and perfect a bomb-making capability while technically observing a narrow interpretation of suspending uranium enrichment.
Dr ElBaradei is to report on his inspections in Iran next week ahead of a meeting of the 35-strong IAEA board in Vienna in three weeks' time.
Critics claim that the EU agreement contained a fatal flaw. Agreement was reached on a broad definition of freezing uranium enrichment, but only verbally.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1148081,00.html