VIENNA , 24 September 2005 — The European Union yesterday tabled a motion at the United Nations nuclear watchdog that refrains from sending Iran to the UN Security Council but condemns it for violations of international atomic safeguards, according to a copy of the document obtained by AFP.
“The motion has been tabled and says Iran’s many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply” with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty “constitutes non-compliance,” the diplomat at the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors told AFP.
The resolution does not call for an immediate referral of Iran to the Security Council but calls on IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei to report on Iran to the board, which will then decide what to do, the diplomat said. The board is expected to decide on the resolution either by consensus or a vote on Saturday.
A Western diplomat said the United States and the EU had enough votes at the 35-nation board both to defeat procedural attempts expected by non-aligned states to stop a meeting today and to approve the resolution. Russia, China and nonaligned states opposed the resolution.
A move to the Security Council, which unlike the IAEA has enforcement powers, would be a major development almost three years into an IAEA investigation that has documented two decades of hidden Iranian nuclear activities that the United States says shows a covert weapons program.
Iran’s resumption last month of uranium conversion, a first step in making what can be fuel for nuclear reactors or material for atom bombs, has set off a crisis in which the United States and the EU want to call in the Security Council.
But Russia, which is building Iran’s first nuclear reactor, and China, which buys Iranian oil, as well as non-aligned states back Iran’s right to what it says are peaceful atomic efforts and reject such an escalation of diplomatic pressure.
The split on the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors has led to paralysis at a board meeting which began Monday, then adjourned Thursday to allow for consultations in capitals, and was delayed in resuming yesterday.
Iran, which is a major oil producer, warned yesterday that it would view the IAEA’s referring it to the Security Council as a “confrontation,” in comments in Vienna by Iranian security official Javad Vaidi.
Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and has said it would react to Security Council referral by limiting cooperation with IAEA inspections and carry out the final steps in making nuclear fuel.
Iran was earlier in the day sensing victory in a diplomatic battle over its nuclear program, but regime officials nevertheless stepped up their bid to avoid even limited criticism from the UN atomic agency.
“The retreat of the Europeans over the Security Council is explained by Iran’s firm position, the fact that the European demand had no logical basis and the objections of countries like Russia, China and nonaligned states,” national security spokesman Ali Agha Mohammadi told AFP in Tehran.
According to state television, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad telephoned India and Pakistan on Thursday to thank them for their support for Iran’s position and to “denounce the European position.”
“Before, the Europeans said they wanted to counter-balance the unilateralism of the United States. But today they are standing alongside the US,” complained Mohammadi. “The new draft resolution at the IAEA is still unacceptable. The nature of the text is unchanged and the Europeans are still using the language of force,” he said.
