VIENNA/TEHRAN, 10 March 2004 — The United States was facing stiff opposition from Britain, France and Germany at the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna yesterday as it pressed for a tough resolution on Iran for non-proliferation violations, diplomats said.
Washington charges that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons, but Tehran maintains its nuclear program is strictly peaceful.
A diplomat said the position of the three European powers was that the International Atomic Energy Agency should be trying to encourage Iran’s cooperation with the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog, even while it criticizes the Islamic Republic for its continuing breaches of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Britain, France and Germany had in October struck a deal with Iran to cooperate with the IAEA, and are still stressing the path of “constructive engagement”, a Western diplomat said.
“There’s still a lot of discussion among board (of governors) members on what would be the appropriate balance in a resolution on Iran and in a resolution on Libya,” IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei, told reporters.
He said he hoped resolutions could be agreed on today or tomorrow at the 35-nation board, which has been meeting at IAEA headquarters in Vienna since Monday.
El-Baradei said some “people want to emphasize more the positive, others would like to focus on the negative, but at the end of the day we will hopefully get a balanced resolution on these two issues.”
“There is a feeling of a great majority of the IAEA board that due to the very fruitful cooperation of Iran and the agency, there shouldn’t be a strong resolution against Iran,” Iranian Ambassador Pirooz Hosseini said.
In Tehran, angered by tough remarks by El-Baradei, conservative Iranian politicians warned that Tehran may cease cooperation with nuclear inspectors, newspapers reported yesterday.
The attitude of conservative legislators, who regained control of Parliament from reformists in elections last month, could jeopardize ratification of an agreement signed by Iran last year to allow intrusive snap checks of its nuclear facilities.
Baradei criticized Iran on Monday for failing to declare advanced nuclear research and equipment which could be used to make atomic bombs.
One senior conservative legislator said Iran could follow North Korea’s example by pulling out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“Iran’s threat about opting out of the NPT is serious,” Hassan Qashqavi, member of Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, was quoted as saying by the hard-line Siyasat-e Rouz newspaper.
