VIENNA, April 22: A pivotal UN report on Iran next week is expected to show little evidence that Tehran is cooperating to defuse the crisis over its nuclear program, diplomats said on Friday.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, is to file the report to the UN Security Council in New York before an April 28 deadline set by the Council for Iran to halt uranium enrichment that could be weapons-related and to cooperate fully with IAEA inspectors.
The IAEA’s most senior inspector below Mr ElBaradei, director of safeguards Olli Heinonen, had on Thursday put off a trip to Iran in what diplomats said was a clear sign that Tehran is failing to give the IAEA the information and a suspension of uranium enrichment which it demands.
Enrichment can make either nuclear reactor fuel or atom bomb material, but Iran insists its program is a peaceful effort to generate electricity.
“There is no expectation that the ElBaradei report will be able to give Iran any credit for implementing the UN Security Council presidential statement or IAEA board of governors resolutions,” said a Western diplomat.
The Council had called in a statement on March 29 for Iran to within 30 days honour IAEA resolutions for Tehran to halt enrichment and to cooperate with the IAEA’s over-three-year-old investigation of its nuclear program.
A senior European diplomat said: “I think relations (between Iran and the IAEA) have soured, that is definitely the case, and that will have repercussions on the report.”
Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh said in Moscow that Tehran was ready for ‘full’ cooperation with the agency.
But the Western diplomat said that ‘although the Iranians promised ElBaradei in Tehran last week (when he visited) that they would shortly be providing more cooperation on unresolved issues, the IAEA has received nothing and as a result there was no reason for Heinonen to travel there’.
US President George Bush on Thursday called for tough action against Iran, including a possible Security Council resolution that could allow for action ranging from economic sanctions to military strikes.
But Russia, which has a veto on the Council, ruled out any discussion of sanctions until it had proof supporting US allegations that Tehran was hiding a nuclear arms program.
Moscow also said it was ‘categorically’ opposed to the use of force.
US officials have said however that there is strong support on the Security Council for a resolution invoking the UN charter’s Chapter 7, which would make Iranian compliance a legal obligation and open the door to sanctions or military action.—AFP
