VIENNA, Aug 11: The governing board of the UN nuclear watchdog unanimously called on Iran on Thursday to halt sensitive atomic work it resumed this week, a demand Tehran immediately rejected as unacceptable and illegal. The resolution adopted by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) board of governors said Iran must resume full suspension of all nuclear fuel related activities and asked the agency to verify Tehran’s compliance.
Iran, which has denied Western accusations that its atomic programme is a front for covert bomb-making, resumed work at its uranium conversion plant in Isfahan on Monday. “The resolution on Iran was just adopted without a vote by consensus, full consensus. All 35 members of the board agreed the language of the resolution text,” IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told reporters.
The IAEA board began meeting on Tuesday but adjourned to allow the EU time to negotiate the Iran resolution with the board members. It reconvened on Thursday to approve the draft after days of backroom negotiations on the text.
The resolution, drafted by Britain, Germany and France, requests IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei “to provide a comprehensive report on the implementation of Iran’s NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) Safeguards Agreement and this resolution by 3 September 2005”.
The text did not say Iran should be referred to the UN Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.
In spite of calls from the EU and the United States not to resume work at the Isfahan plant, Tehran on Wednesday broke the UN seals and made the facility fully operational.
UNACCEPTABLE: The resolution “urges Iran to re-establish full suspension of all enrichment related activities...and to permit the Director-General to reinstate the seals that have been removed at (Isfahan).”
EU diplomats said that if Iran did not comply, they would ask the board to refer the matter to the Security Council in September.
Iran rejected the resolution as unacceptable.
“Iran cannot accept this resolution,” Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, was quoted as saying by the semi-official students’ news agency ISNA.
The head of Iran’s delegation to the meeting, Sirus Naseri, said that in spite of the resolution, Iran would continue work at the Isfahan plant while observing IAEA safeguards aimed at preventing the diversion of uranium to covert weapons work.
“We will fully observe our obligations in our programme of producing nuclear fuel,” Mr Naseri said. “Iran will be a nuclear fuel producer and supplier within a decade.”
US, UK: The United States said that the unanimous approval of the European resolution made it clear that the world was united on the issue of prevent Iran from getting the bomb.
“This resolution...shows that the international community is united in its determination that Iran move off the dangerous course that it is on,” the US ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna, Gregory Schulte, told reporters.
Britain said the resolution gave Iran a chance to resolve the issue diplomatically.
“This sends a clear message to Iran on what it should do. We still believe there is a non-confrontational way forward, if Iran wants to take it,” a British Foreign Office spokesman said.
The text of resolution said there was still a “possibility of further discussions” between Iran and the EU trio aimed at resolving the nuclear impasse between Islamic Republic and the West.
INCENTIVES: Iran voluntarily suspended all sensitive atomic work in November 2004 after reaching a deal with the EU trio called the Paris Agreement, under which Tehran froze work related to atomic fuel production while negotiating a permanent deal with the EU.
Earlier this week, Iran rejected the EU’s offer of political and economic incentives if it permanently abandoned enriched uranium fuel production, calling it “an insult to the Iranian nation for which the EU3 must apologise”.—Reuters
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