VIENNA, 10 September 2003 — The United States said yesterday Iran had clearly violated its UN nuclear safeguards obligations, but backed a resolution giving Tehran until Oct. 31 to come clean about the full extent of its nuclear program.
The United States — which labeled Iran part of an “axis of evil” with North Korea and prewar Iraq — has been pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) board of governors to demand at this week’s closed-door meeting that Iran enable UN inspectors to get to the bottom of its nuclear program.
A draft resolution, submitted jointly to the IAEA board by France, Germany and Britain, set an Oct. 31 deadline for Iran to demonstrate full compliance with international obligations. “The United States believes that the facts ... would fully justify an immediate finding of non-compliance by Iran,” US Ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna, Kenneth Brill, told the UN nuclear watchdog’s governing board.
Brill was referring to Iran’s UN Safeguards Agreement, a key part of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran signed in 1970. A finding of non-compliance would require the board to report Iran to the Security Council for sanctions.
However, Brill said Washington had consented to other board member states’ desire “to give Iran a last chance to stop its evasions” and come clean about its nuclear program, which the United States says is a front to develop an atomic bomb.
Britain’s ambassador to the IAEA echoed the US comments and told the board: “This is their last chance.”
Iran says it is developing a civilian nuclear program to satisfy booming electricity demand and free up abundant oil and gas reserves for export.
Washington found itself isolated when it tried to push the IAEA board to report Iran to the UN Security Council for violating its NPT obligations. But diplomats told Reuters many governors on the 35-nation board agreed to support the new resolution, which said Iran must “remedy all failures identified by the agency”.
The draft, obtained by Reuters, added: “It is ‘essential and urgent’... that Iran cooperate fully with the agency to ensure verification of compliance... by taking all necessary actions by the end of October.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters in Sofia that he hoped the nuclear watchdog would not give into the US pressure to come down hard on the Islamic republic.
“We hope that the IAEA would not bow to political pressure and that political motives would not create difficulties to our cooperation with the agency,” he said through an interpreter. “A decision should be taken based on facts.”
Kharazzi also confirmed that Iran was still prepared to begin talks with the IAEA on signing an NPT protocol that would allow the IAEA to carry out more intrusive, snap inspections. The US-backed draft resolution demanded that Iran sign it.
Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, told reporters Tehran had no secret weapons program and had fully cooperated with the UN, even going “beyond our obligations”.
“It is as though we have already provisionally applied the Additional Protocol,” he said, referring to the NPT protocol that would allow the IAEA to carry out more intrusive, snap inspections.
In a bombastic speech to the board, the US ambassador criticized the IAEA’s Aug. 26 progress report on its Iran inspections, which he said was “less effectively organized and less clear” than the June 6 Iran report.
Several Western diplomats complained that IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei used gentle language that played down Iran’s failures to report about its nuclear activities in the August report. For example, diplomats said, instead of saying Iran lied to the agency repeatedly, El-Baradei wrote: “Some of the information was in contrast to that previously provided by Iran.”
Brill said a peaceful resolution depended on the board doing the right thing and forcing Iran to comply with the NPT.
“Finding peaceful resolutions to critical non-proliferation issues means, among other things, that relevant institutions must serve their intended functions,” he said.
The Non-Aligned Movement, which has 15 seats on the IAEA board, praised Iran in a statement for its “increased degree of cooperation”.
