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Diplomats Near Agreement to Censure Iran

Tuesday June 15, 2004 7:46 PM
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Diplomats said they were near agreement Tuesday on a toughly worded draft resolution to censure Iran rather than punish it for its lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The document under consideration at the IAEA 35-nation board of governors meeting here said the document lacked a direct threat of sanctions but did keep pressure on Iran to come clean on aspects of its 20-year covert nuclear program that was discovered two years ago.

The draft resolution - written by Germany, France and Britain - was expected to be adopted later this week, the diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

The new draft toned down demands on Iran to abort plans to build a heavy water reactor and slightly modified language taking Tehran to task for hampering the IAEA probe. But the overall wording remained tough, according to the envoys.

One key phrase in the planned resolution ``deplored'' Iran's spotty record on cooperating with the agency. Other omissions by Iran were noted with ``concern'' or ``serious concern.'' All the phrases are tough language in the diplomatic context.

The draft contained no deadline or ``trigger mechanism'' as sought by the United States and its allies that could set into motion possible sanctions if Iran continued its foot-dragging past a certain date.

However, in an apparent nod to the United States, Canada, Australia and other nations calling for more action, the draft contrasted the ``the passage of time'' - a year since the IAEA probe began - and the still blurry contours of Iran's nuclear program.

The draft appeared to echo the sentiments of IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who said Monday in unusually blunt comments that his agency's probe ``can't go on forever.''

Iran has rejected U.S. allegations that its nuclear program is a smoke screen for making atomic weapons. Instead, the country says its uranium-enrichment is geared solely toward generating electricity.

``We have no plans to produce weapons and all of our activities are for peaceful purposes and nothing is wrong,'' Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters Tuesday in Istanbul, Turkey.

In a bid to sway the meeting, the Iranian delegation met privately with ElBaradei for an hour Tuesday and lobbied the chief delegates of the three European nations who wrote the draft, said a diplomat close to the agency.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami also sent a letter to the European powers behind the draft resolution warning them against giving in to ``U.S. pressure'' and saying Iran may cut back its cooperation.

The United States wants the IAEA to declare Iran in breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to refer Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

Kenneth Brill, the chief U.S. delegate to the IAEA, said in Vienna that Washington remained convinced that Iran was ``trying to hide ... a weapons program.''

One diplomat told The Associated Press that Washington recognized it could not get majority board support for a direct or implicit threat of U.N. sanctions.

Instead, he said, the Americans were looking ahead to the next board meeting in September with the expectation that new revelations about Iran's nuclear program would surface by then.

The results of analysis of enriched uranium traces found on military sites in Iran and now being evaluated by the agency could provide the trigger in September, said the diplomat, suggesting such a finding could support suspicions that Tehran enriched uranium domestically.

Iran denies working on enrichment beyond the experimental stage and says the traces found within the country, which include minute amounts at weapons-grade levels, were inadvertently imported.

Under growing international pressure, Iran has suspended uranium enrichment and stopped building centrifuges. It also has allowed IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities without notice. But recent revelations have raised new suspicions.

An IAEA report, written by ElBaradei, says Iran inquired about buying thousands of magnets for centrifuges on the black market - casting doubt on Iranian assertions that its P-2 centrifuge program was purely experimental and not aimed for full uranium enrichment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4208055,00.html