IAEA chief says Iran dispute is not ‘crisis situation’

By Daniel Dombey
February 2, 2006
The Financial Times
Original Source: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3c36f4a6-93e6-11da-82ea-0000779e2340.html

Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Thursday told a meeting of the nuclear watchdog that the dispute between Iran and the west was “at a critical stage, but was “in no way a crisis situation”.
He said that Thursday’s meeting was “about confidence building, but not in any way about an imminent threat”.
There had been some positive signals from Iran, which had stepped up its co-operation with the IAEA in recent days, and there was a window of opportunity to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme, said Mr ElBaradei.
He noted, however, that the majority of the IAEA board were agreed that Iran needed to return to full suspension of its nuclear enrichment activities and that a majority of board members were in favour of reporting Iran to the UN security council over its failure to co-operate with IAEA demands. A vote was likely to be held on the issue on Friday, he said.
Earlier this week all five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, Russia, China, France and the UK (P5) - agreed to propose that Tehran should be reported to the Security Council but that any substantial discussions should be deferred until talks at the UN in New York next month.
Although the EU and Washington are confident they have the support of a majority of the 35 nations on the IAEA’s board, they have yet to win over non-aligned countries such as India and South Africa.
Iran claimed on Thursday it had the backing of non-aligned nations. “We have the full support of non-aligned countries,” Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the FT before the meeting began.
Non-aligned countries, who have 16 members on the IAEA board, have indicated they would like an amendment to the EU3 resolution. But diplomats say the group rejected proposals by Iran on Wednesday to put forward a rival resolution to the European one.
Speaking for the non-aligned countries, Rajmah Hussain, Malaysia’s ambassador, said that although the IAEA board had found Iran in non-compliance with its obligations it was too soon to report the issue to the UN Security Council.
“This would be premature as the director-general of the IAEA is still investigating the issue in preparation for the March 2006 board of governors meeting.”
At the board meeting, Grigory Berdennikov, Russian ambassador to the IAEA underlined that the Russian stance had not changed since this week’s meeting of the UN permanent members but added: “Iran must undertake to straighten the situation.”
Thursday’s meeting is likely to be suspended at a relatively early stage with a view to a vote on Friday. Iran has repeatedly warned that if it is reported to the UN Security Council it will break off its voluntary co-operation with IAEA inspectors - a step likely to heighten tensions in the dispute.
The European resolution calls for Iran to continue not to enrich uranium; to allow spot checks by IAEA inspectors; to give IAEA staff access to people, documents, “dual use equipment, certain military-owned workshops and research and development as the Agency may request in support of its ongoing investigations”.
It also requests that Mr ElBaradei “report to the Security Council of the United Nations that these steps are required of Iran by the Board and to report to the Security Council all IAEA reports and resolutions, as adopted, relating to this issue.”
“We can compromise about some of the language, but the final resolution has to contain the word report,” said a western diplomat.
The resolution also “calls on Iran to understand that the board lacks confidence in its intentions in seeking to develop a fissile material production capability against the background of Iran’s record”.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, said on Wednesday that he saw no “signs of life” in a Russian proposal floated as a compromise under which Moscow would allay international concerns over Tehran’s nuclear programme by enriching uranium in Russia.
But Mr Larijani said that Moscow’s proposal could be studied only “under normal conditions” and not under “the current radical atmosphere”.
Additional reporting by Gareth Smyth and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran