VIENNA, 13 September 2003 — The UN atomic agency board yesterday said Iran has until the end of October to clear up suspicions about its nuclear aims, setting the stage for possible UN Security Council action should it not comply.
Iranian representatives walked out of the meeting in response. Iran repeatedly has warned it would not accept any deadline carrying the possibility of future Security Council involvement, implying that such a decision would aggravate nuclear tensions.
“We will have no choice but to have a deep review of our existing level and extent of engagement with the agency vis-à-vis this resolution,” Iranian ambassador to the UN in Vienna Ali Akbar Salehi said in the text of a statement to the board.
The US-backed resolution submitted by Australia, Canada and Japan called on Iran to “provide accelerated cooperation” with agency efforts to clear up Tehran’s nuclear question marks. It also urged Iran to “ensure there are no further failures,” in reporting obligations and called on it to “suspend all further uranium enrichment-related activities, including the further introduction of nuclear material” into a facility where IAEA inspectors found traces of weapons-grade enriched uranium.
After the Oct. 31 deadline, IAEA is expected in November to draw “definitive conclusions” about Iran’s program and whether the country should be declared in noncompliance of international nonproliferation obligations, a US official said.
If Tehran is officially declared in noncompliance, “Iran will forfeit it’s right to share nuclear technology for peaceful purposes” and Russia will not be able to provide critical nuclear fuel for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant, the official added.
