ElBaradei: Iran Didn't Comply with NPT Commitments
Tue November 4, 2003 06:11 AM ET
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MADRID (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Iran's declaration showed it had previously failed to comply with commitments under the global non-proliferation pact, a Spanish newspaper reported Tuesday.
"We have analyzed certain parts of the documents and they show that Iran failed to comply with some of its commitments under the (nuclear Non-Proliferation) Treaty," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in an interview published in El Pais newspaper.
On Oct. 23, Iran gave the IAEA a declaration that it described as a complete and accurate history of its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is peaceful.
This declaration was delivered to the United Nations to meet an October 31 deadline set by the IAEA governing board for Iran to come clean about its nuclear program, which Washington says is a front for building an atomic bomb.
"I will give further information on this next week," ElBaradei said in the interview which took place Monday in New York.
Next week, diplomats in Vienna are expected to receive ElBaradei's latest report on IAEA inspections in Iran. This report will be the subject of discussion at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting on November 20.
Although the contents of Iran's declaration have been kept confidential, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA Ali Akbar Salehi said Tehran had been forced to be "discreet" about many of its nuclear activities due to decades of sanctions.
This was why it had repeatedly not informed the IAEA of many of its atomic activities, Salehi said.
IRAN'S FAILURES TO COMPLY ARE HISTORY
The United States has been pushing the 35-nation IAEA governing board to declare Iran in "non-compliance" with its Safeguards Agreement under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Such a finding would require the board to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. Diplomats have told Reuters that Washington has little support on the IAEA board and that Iran will likely escape censure by the council.
Furthermore, Iran says its failures to inform the IAEA of its activities are all in the past and that it has since declared all activities and facilities to the U.N. inspectors.
ElBaradei said there were "divisions" on the board about whether to inform the council about Iran's failures. He also made it clear the inspection process in Iran was far from over, indicating that a finding of non-compliance would be premature.
"There are still a lot of things to analyze," ElBaradei said. "I don't think we will have finished before the November 20 Board of Governors meeting."
ElBaradei said the investigation into the origin of traces of weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium found at two sites in Iran would take months to complete.
Iran says the traces came from contaminated machinery purchased abroad, an explanation that has met with skepticism among countries like the United States which suspect that Iran either bought or purified the uranium itself for use in a bomb.
"We have to identify the country of origin of the contamination, go to that country, take traces to verify if, in fact, the traces of enriched uranium are from contamination and not home-produced," ElBaradei said. "(We need) at least another couple of months, until the beginning of next year."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=3749603&pageNumber=1"We have analyzed certain parts of the documents and they show that Iran failed to comply with some of its commitments under the (nuclear Non-Proliferation) Treaty,"
What makes anyone think they will comply with IAEA?
The regime can't be trusted. Period.