Chief Nuclear Inspector Rejects Iran Call
March 08, 2004
The Associated Press
George Jahn
VIENNA, Austria -- The head of the U.N atomic agency on Monday rejected Iranian demands of an end to international scrutiny, saying Tehran would remain in the spotlight as long as questions remained about its nuclear agenda.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, spoke at the start of an IAEA board of governors meeting trying to bridge differences over Iran's nuclear intentions - and what to do about them.
Germany, Britain and France want an emphasis on the progress Iran has made in revealing nuclear activities and cooperating with IAEA inspectors since the discovery last year of a secret uranium enrichment program and covert tests that could be applied toward making nuclear weapons.
Convinced that Tehran at one point wanted to make nuclear weapons, Washington, however, wants tough language to dominate in any resolution adopted by the board.
Ahead of the meeting, a senior Iranian official on Sunday demanded an end to the board's scrutiny of its nuclear activities, insisting that they were never geared toward making arms. He also demanded that the three European countries deliver on promises of access to advanced nuclear technology in exchange for cooperation with the IAEA.
"We told them that if you don't fulfill your promise everything will return to day one," Hasan Rowhani said at a meeting with other senior Iranian officials in Tehran.
ElBaradei, however, suggested that Iran's nuclear activities would remain under scrutiny.
"The issue will (only) be removed form the agenda when we are done with all the issues that are outstanding," he told reporters ahead of the meeting. Progress on clearing up question marks about Iran's past suspect nuclear activities, "depends very much on the kind of cooperation we hopefully will continue to receive from Iran," he said.
"To build confidence takes years and requires absolute transparency and full openness," said ElBaradei. He said the board would also discuss agency findings resulting from its probe of the black market providing Iran, Libya and North Korea with technology that can be used to make nuclear weapons.
He described both Iran and Libya - which has acknowledged having a weapons program and has pledged to scrap it - as in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty.
But with Libya commonly accepted as willing to reveal all about its former nuclear secrets, it is Iran that is under the gun at the Vienna meeting.
While insisting it is interested in uranium enrichment only to generate power and not to arm warheads, Iran has suspended its enrichment program to defang criticism and ease months of international pressure. Still, it insists it has every right to resume such activities, despite international demands that Iranian enrichment be scrapped, not just suspended.
Tehran has also allowed IAEA inspectors broad access to its nuclear programs and has handed over materials requested by ElBaradei in his investigation of nearly two decades of covert activities, including purchases from the nuclear black market that also supplied Libya and North Korea.
Still, an IAEA report prepared for Monday's meeting of the 35-nation board faults Tehran for continuing to hide evidence of nuclear experiments unearthed by agency inspectors and again urges it to come clean. Made public last month, the dossier dealt the Islamic Republic a setback in its efforts to convince the world that its nuclear program is peaceful and that it is fully cooperating with the U.N. agency.
The report mentioned finding traces of polonium, a radioactive element that can help trigger a nuclear chain reaction, but which Iran says it was interested in for generating electricity. And it expressed concerns with the discovery of a previously undisclosed advanced P-2 uranium centrifuge system - a finding that the U.S. administration said raises "serious concerns" about Tehran's intentions.
Nia Zamani, a member of the Iranian delegation, told reporters his country is "working actively with the agency to resolve outstanding issues." He said any resolution should reflect "this trend of positive cooperation and outstanding issues being resolved one after the other."
U.S. officials don't agree. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said last week that Iran was exhibiting "a continuing pattern of deception and concealment."
"We're absolutely determined ... that we're not going to ease pressure on Iran," he said in Lisbon, Portugal.
The German, French and British, feel, however that too much pressure could backfire, particularly at a time of domestic political struggle between Iran's moderates and hardliners.
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=471416§ion=news"The German, French and British, feel, however that too much pressure could backfire, particularly at a time of domestic political struggle between Iran's moderates and hardliners."
What does that mean?