TEHRAN/VIENNA, 14 November 2004 — The UN atomic agency has postponed until Monday releasing a landmark report on Iran’s nuclear program as EU officials pursue talks to save a deal for Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment and avoid possible UN sanctions, diplomats said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) yesterday postponed for a second time in the week the release of the report to give Iran more time to hand over a letter officials hope will announce a halt in uranium enrichment, a key process that makes nuclear fuel but also the explosive core for atomic bombs, diplomats said.
The letter could then be included in the report for an IAEA meeting in Vienna on Nov. 25 that will consider US charges that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.
The comprehensive report is to sum up the IAEA’s investigation of Iran’s nuclear program since Febuary 2003 in order to allow the agency’s 35-nation board of governors to decide whether Iran is violating international safeguards against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Britain, France and Germany are trying to strike a deal for Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment activities so that the IAEA will not, as Washington wants, send the dossier to the UN Security Council, which can impose punishing sanctions.
But the European trio has said they will back the US hard-line if Iran fails to tell the IAEA that it agrees to full suspension of uranium enrichment.
Iran has since October 2003 suspended the actual enrichment of uranium as a confidence-building measure but not support activities such as making the feed gas and manufacturing centrifuges.
