TEHRAN/BERLIN, 12 September 2005 — A joint EU and US effort to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over a suspected nuclear weapons program is meeting fierce resistance from some members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) diplomats say.
More than half a dozen countries on the IAEA’s 35-nation governing board, which meets on Sept. 19, believe there is no justification for a referral, they said.
“I think unanimity may be impossible,” one European diplomat told Reuters. “Pakistan and Brazil have basically given us a definitive ‘no’. “Several other countries will also be difficult to convince.” “China and Russia will be difficult,” another EU diplomat said, adding that without Beijing and Moscow the plan to ratchet up the pressure on Tehran might fail. The United States and the European Union want the IAEA to refer Iran to the Security Council after it resumed uranium processing at its Isfahan plant last month, effectively ending talks with the EU on giving up its nuclear program.
European officials say they would not immediately ask the Council to impose sanctions, but want it to demand that Iran refreeze its program and resume talks with Britain, France and Germany, which are negotiating on behalf of the EU.
Officials from the EU trio and the United States are trying to win around IAEA board members like Russia, China, India and South Africa, which see no need for UN Security Council scrutiny of Iran’s nuclear program.
Meanwhile, Iran’s new foreign minister announced yesterday Tehran will build two more nuclear power plants and warned of “consequences” if Tehran is referred to the UN Security Council.
In his first press conference since taking office, Manouchehr Mottaki also reiterated Iran’s refusal to resume the full freeze of uranium processing it observed during confidence talks with the European Union earlier this year. “There is no question of returning to a new suspension at Isfahan,” Mottaki told reporters, referring to Iran’s uranium ore conversion plant.
“There is no legal basis to send the dossier to the Security Council. This would be a political move. We do not see a serious sign that this will happen. It is natural that such an event will have consequences, but right now I do not want to go into what the repercussions would be,” he warned.
Iran’s decision last month to resume conversion, the precursor to uranium enrichment, has scuttled talks with Britain, France and Germany aimed at winning guarantees that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful. The country also defied a resolution passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demanding a resumption of the processing freeze, arguing that making fuel was a right under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
