VIENNA, 19 September 2004 — A 35-nation meeting of the UN atomic watchdog agency yesterday demanded that Iran suspend all aspects of a key process that can be used to make nuclear weapons, and set an indirect late fall deadline for Tehran to heed its conditions.
The United States — which accuses Iran of trying to make such arms — praised the text and urged the conference to act to send Tehran to the UN Security Council in November should it be found to have defied any of the resolution’s conditions.
“To wait until the IAEA finds the nuclear weapons... is to wait until it is too late,” chief US delegate Jackie Sanders said in prepared comments to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors. “With every passing week, Iran moves that much closer to reaching the point where neither we, nor any other international body, will be able to prevent it from achieving nuclear weapons capacity.
“The time for decisive action is approaching,” she said.
Iran, however, suggested that Washington failed to nail down a specific date for the country to comply or push through automatic referral to the UN Security Council should it fail to do so.
And European countries also suggested that the issue of Iran would be debated at least one more time at the next board meeting in November.
Approved unanimously by delegates at the board meeting, the toughly worded resolution said it “considers it necessary” that Iran freeze all uranium enrichment and related programs and expressed alarm at Iranian plans to convert more than 40 tons of raw uranium into uranium hexafluoride — the gas that when spun in centrifuges turns into enriched uranium.
It also said it “strongly urges” Iran to meet all demands by the agency in its investigation of the country’s nearly two decades of clandestine nuclear activity, including unrestricted access to sites, information and personnel that can shed light on still unanswered questions on whether Tehran was interested in the atom for nuclear weapons.
It called on the IAEA head Mohamed El-Baradei “to provide a review of the findings of a more-than one year probe of Iran’s nuclear activities which Tehran insists are strictly tailored toward generating electricity.
Suggesting that Iran could answer to the UN Security Council should it defy the demands, the resolution said the next board meeting in November “will decide whether or not further steps are appropriate” in ensuring Iran complies. The Americans, who accuse Iran of using the argument of peaceful nuclear aims to acquire the technology to make weapons, praised the text as sending a “stark” message to Iran.
El-Baradei described the text as reflecting “the collective will of the international community,” adding: “The resolution is very clear as to what is expected of Iran in the next few months.”
While demanding Iran suspend all uranium enrichment activities, the resolution also recognized nations’ right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy — which Iran says is what it wants nuclear enrichment for.
By giving the Iranians room to maneuver on enrichment, the resolution appeared to fall far short of what the Americans had wanted coming into the meeting. Washington had pushed to drop mention of countries’ rights to peaceful nuclear technology and fought for an Oct. 31 deadline, with the understanding that if Iran failed to comply the board would then automatically begin deliberations on Security Council referral.
The phrasing accepted instead left it up to the board to debate what action — if any — to take when it reconvenes Nov. 25 should Iran be found to have ignored the demand to freeze enrichment or other conditions.
Iran’s chief delegate to the meeting asserted that Washington was frustrated in its main goals — “putting deadline of Oct 31, (and) second an automatic trigger mechanism.”
