UN nuclear watchdog debates Iran deadline

Financial Times:

By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran and Guy Dinmore in Washington Published: August 10 2005 22:00 Last updated: August 11 2005 10:48

The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog is set to vote on a request for a detailed report on Iran’s non-proliferation safeguards by September 3 as the organisation struggles to reach agreement on its response to Iran’s resumption of nuclear activities.

A new draft resolution to the International Atomic Energy Authority requests that the organisation’s director general, Mohamed El-Baradei, report on Iran’s implementation of agreed non-proliferation safeguards in three weeks’ time.

The new draft resolution, due to be debated at the IAEA in Vienna on Thursday, held back from demanding that Iran be referred to the UN Security Council, which has the power to impose crippling sanctions on Iran.

On Wednesday an IAEA emergency board meeting adjourned without agreement on a resolution that would call on Iran to reinstate the suspension of its nuclear work. The resolution, drafted by Western nations, ran into opposition from developing countries.

Earlier South Africa proposed a compromise to break the diplomatic crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, after Tehran on Wednesday removed United Nations seals from a uranium conversion facility in order to resume work on producing nuclear fuel.

Diplomats said Thabo Mbeki, South African president, was involved in pushing the interim compromise. Two weeks ago he met Hassan Rowhani, who was then Iran's chief negotiator, to discuss a proposal that would involve shipping South African uranium yellowcake to Iran for conversion into uranium hexafluoride gas. This would be returned to South Africa to be enriched into nuclear fuel.

The proposal is designed to allay fears that Iran could use its facilities to develop nuclear weapons. Iran sees the proposal as an interim confidence-building measure but says it wants to develop the whole fuel cycle for its own civilian use later. “For further confidence-building we are ready to sell the output to a third country in co-operation with the EU and under the IAEA supervision,” Ali Aghamohammadi, spokesman for the Supreme National Security Council, told the FT.

An Iranian official involved in the talks said: “The Europeans seem to be agreeing with this issue quietly, without actually saying it.”

But European officials said the South African initiative had little prospect of success. Public statements showed positions were hardening again in response to Iran's decision to restart its Isfahan uranium conversion facility, which is under surveillance by the UN nuclear watchdog.

The EU-3 group of France, Germany and the UK accused Iran of “flagrant disregard” of its November 2004 agreement voluntarily to suspend its nuclear fuel cycle development. There would be no further talks until Iran resumed that suspension, a UK official said.

The Western powers are struggling to persuade the non-aligned bloc on the IAEA’s 35-member board to back a resolution that would urge Iran to go back to its suspension so that talks could resume. Western governments could muster a slim majority but this would carry much less diplomatic weight than the usual IAEA practice of consensus, diplomats said.

The EU-3 and the US intend to push ahead with another IAEA resolution in September that would try to refer Iran to the UN Security Council if there were no change by then. An Iranian official said it would go to the next stage and restart uranium enrichment at its Natanz facility if it was taken to the council.