Iranian Alert - November 16, 2004 [EST]- LIVE - "EU-Iran Nuclear Deal Hinges on U.S. Engagement"

Iran, EU Differ On Nuclear Suspension

[Excerpt] November 16, 2004
The Wall Street Journal
Marc Champion

European and Iranian leaders hailed a deal suspending Tehran's uranium-enrichment program, but the sides had differing views on how long the suspension would last and whether it would become permanent.

The agreement, the text of which was released yesterday, commits Iran to suspend "all enrichment and reprocessing activities" for nuclear fuels -- including the construction, assembly or importation of equipment -- and all tests or activities related to the production of the feed materials required for the process.

Iran's effort to create nuclear fuel from uranium -- called the nuclear-fuel cycle -- is legal under its commitments to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Such fuel can be used to run civilian power stations. But the program had been covert, leading to suspicions, particularly in the U.S., that it was intended to produce nuclear weapons.

The agreement between Iran and negotiators for Britain, Germany, France and the European Union is far more specific regarding what Iran has to suspend than a previous deal Tehran struck with the Europeans in October 2003, but later abandoned. However, it already was clear yesterday that the two sides have differing views of where the agreement will lead.

"Cessation [of Iran's nuclear-fuel cycle] was our red line. In the agreement there is no talk of cessation, but only voluntary suspension," Hasan Rowhani, Iran's national security chief and lead negotiator in the nuclear talks, said at a news conference announcing the Nov. 22 suspension. The suspension is to last as long as it takes to work out a permanent accord on Iran's nuclear-fuel cycle, which Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said should be completed "in a short period of time."

By contrast, the European Union's foreign policy and security chief, Javier Solana, described the agreement as "just the start" of a potentially difficult process, as negotiators tried to secure the ultimate goal of providing "objective guarantees that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes."

A British official involved in the talks said the accord will lead to negotiations by mid-December on a range of issues, including a permanent pact governing Iran's nuclear program, trade cooperation, technology transfer and commitments on security. Working groups would be established for each of these negotiating strands, and would meet for the first time in three months. It is likely to be several years before the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna is satisfied Iran's nuclear program is purely civilian, the official said.

"The most comprehensive guarantee we could envisage is that the Iranians give up enrichment altogether and import fuel for their power stations," the official said. The Europeans would be willing to look at Iranian proposals that allowed Tehran to continue making its own nuclear fuel. But, the official added, there would have to be "objective" guarantees that the fuel created would be for civilian use only. ...

Write to Marc Champion at marc.champion@wsj.com

Deputy Secretary of State Armitage Quits -Official

Tue Nov 16,10:55 AM ET

Politics - Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has resigned as expected a day after his boss and close friend, Colin Powell (news - web sites), announced he was stepping down, a State Department official said on Tuesday.

Reuters Photo

Armitage, a barrel-chested former Navy officer who closely managed the day-to-day operations of the State Department's worldwide bureaucracy, tendered his resignation to Powell on Monday, the official said.

"He came in with the secretary and is leaving with him," said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Armitage was respected among diplomats and lawmakers for his candor. He was always expected to leave at the same time as Powell because of his fierce loyalty to him.

The top U.S. diplomat announced his own resignation on Monday and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) is set to be named to replace him.

"I don't think she has decided on her deputy yet," the official said.

With moderates Powell and Armitage leaving and President Bush (news - web sites) poised to elevate Rice, a close confidante who often sided with the administration's hawks, U.S. diplomacy may become more hard-edged, political analysts say.

Uranium metal may suggest Iran arms plan-diplomats

16 Nov 2004 16:23:22 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Plans by Iran to manufacture uranium metal suggest Tehran could have had ambitions to develop capacity for atomic arms production, Western diplomats and a prominent nuclear analyst said on Tuesday.

A report by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), circulated on Monday, said Iran's stated purpose for uranium metal work -- to use it in its laser enrichment programme -- was "credible".

Western diplomats acknowledged Uranium metal does have some, limited civilian applications. But they were sceptical about the explanation offered by Iran, which denies U.S. accusations its nuclear power programme is a front for atomic arms development.

The IAEA report, a summary of its two-year investigation of Iran's nuclear programme, said Iran had not diverted any of its declared nuclear materials to a weapons programme, but did not rule out the possibility that secret atomic activities existed.

Diplomats and analysts said some issues covered in the 32-page report appeared to support the U.S. view that Iran has bomb plans. They cited Iran's forays into uranium metallurgy.

The report said Tehran planned to buy uranium abroad with 19.7 percent uranium-235, the atom needed in big concentrations in weapons, and transform it into metal. The 19.7 percent enrichment level is well above what Iran needs for power plants.

"This looks like it was a programme to make weapons-grade uranium metal disguised as one focused on making 19.7 percent enriched uranium metal," David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of the Institute for Science and International Security think-tank, told Reuters.

Western diplomats questioned were also wary.

"There's no reason why these guys should be playing around with uranium metal, and you don't do laser enrichment to put electricity in a light bulb," said a Western diplomat on the IAEA's 35-member board of governors.

MORE SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET?

Jon Wolfsthal, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think-tank, said Iran may have more skeletons in its closet.

"Iran could have nuclear activities hidden from the IAEA," he said. "The picture in Iran is clearer, but far from crystal."

Several diplomats agreed. They said the IAEA report included suspicious issues that have never been fully explained by Iran.

One has to do with Iran's experiments with polonium-210, a substance that has few civilian uses but can be combined with beryllium to spark a chain reaction in an atomic weapon.

Iran says it tried to make polonium over a decade ago for use in atomic batteries, like those used in U.S. space probes.

But the IAEA said it was "somewhat uncertain regarding the plausibility of the stated purpose of the experiments given the very limited applications of short-lived polonium-210 sources."

Still, Wolfsthal said that Iran's decision to suspend its enrichment programme and related activites gave it a chance to be forgiven for concealing this programme for 18 years.

"Iran can put all of its past violations behind them if they remain committed to suspension and eventual termination of its nuclear production activities," Wolfsthal said.

Iran informed that IAEA on Sunday that it would suspend its uranium enrichment programme as part of a deal worked out with European Union negotiators from France, Britain and Germany.

Diplomats said the suspension, combined with what diplomats said was IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's partial acquittal of Iran in Monday's report, will protect Tehran from a referral to the U.N. Security Council when the IAEA board meets on Nov. 25.

But European diplomats said this protection from a Security Council referral, as Washington wants, could vanish if Iran resumed its enrichment programme as it says it will do soon.

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