ISLAMABAD/TEHRAN, 8 September 2005 — Iran’s top nuclear negotiator sought to soothe international unease over his country’s nuclear program during a visit to Pakistan yesterday, days after a UN watchdog confirmed Tehran had resumed uranium conversion.
Ali Larijani has been seeking support from non-Western nations for Iran’s plan to pursue what it says is a program designed for power generation and not atomic weapons.
“Having stated this principle that we are determined to have nuclear technology... We are fully prepared to have any international negotiations, discussions to remove the international concerns,” Larijani said after meeting Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a fresh initiative that will “facilitate work to assure the international community of the exclusively peaceful (nature) of our activities,” Larijani told reporters, without expanding on what that initiative contained.
Larijani, appointed last month by Iran’s new president, was due to meet Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, after his talks with Aziz.
Iran is facing mounting diplomatic pressure after an International Atomic Energy Agency report issued last Friday confirmed Tehran had resumed uranium conversion, one of several activities previously suspended under a deal with three European Union nations — France, Britain and Germany.
Larijani said his government was continuing to discuss its nuclear program with the UN’s nuclear watchdog, and hold negotiations with other countries. But, a senior EU diplomat told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday that the negotiating process, begun with Iran in Paris last November, appeared to be at an end. He said the next logical step was for the IAEA to report Iran’s nuclear program to the UN Security Council, although discussions on sanctions against Iran were a long way off. The IAEA board meets in Vienna on Sept. 19.
The United States and the Europeans are trying to reach a broad consensus for reporting the Iranian case to the Security Council, but Russian and Chinese support are in doubt. Iran could develop bomb-making capability in as little as five years, although the International Institute of Strategic Studies reckons a 15-year time frame was more likely.
The assessment is in line with British estimates, although US intelligence reports have been more conservative, with a study last month putting the date for a bomb at 2015. Pakistan, the only Islamic country with nuclear weapons, is opposed to any use of force against its western neighbor, and Larijani voiced his appreciation of Islamabad’s stance.
Washington has not ruled out using force to stop Iran’s nuclear program although its main ally Britain has said such action would be inconceivable.
His visit to Pakistan follows a recent tough report issued by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammed El-Baradei, that showed Iran failing to meet demands for cessation of all nuclear fuel activities.
It said that despite two and a half years of IAEA investigations, Iran had failed to resolve critical questions about work with both uranium and plutonium — the two raw materials for making atom bombs.
In Tehran, a spokesman for Iran’s Supreme National Security Council yesterday said Tehran was to challenge a tough report on its nuclear program by the IAEA as it contains “errors” and makes “unacceptable” demands of the Islamic republic. The senior nuclear negotiator, Ali Agha Mohammadi, also warned the United States and European Union that referring Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions was “a threat that is doomed to fail.”
“We are in the process of examining the report and responding point by point to its errors. Several demands are unacceptable and go beyond international treaties and the additional protocol” of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, said the spokesman for Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
El-Baradei wrote that Iran had continued with nuclear fuel work, despite calls for a suspension, and noted that the IAEA was “not yet in a position to clarify some important outstanding issues after two and a half years of intensive inspections and investigation.”
Mohammadi said that any talk of a freeze therefore went beyond the NPT. “We will accept anything that is a part of international norms. We have accepted to apply the additional protocol but the IAEA cannot invent specific rules for Iran,” he said. “We will not accept negotiations with conditions. The suspension was voluntary ... but the Europeans made unacceptable demands,” said Mohammadi.
With the country refusing to return to a freeze, the issue could be taken to the UN Security Council - a move that would represent a serious diplomatic blow to Iran. “There is no need to send the case to the Security Council. If it is sent there, that means it is political (and) a threat that is doomed to fail. We call for international cooperation and reject threats,” the official said.
