VIENNA, Nov 24: The deadlock over Iran’s atomic programme continued on Monday as France, Germany and Britain circulated a new draft UN nuclear resolution on Iran’s 18-year concealment of atomic research that is too weak for Washington.
The UN International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) 35-member Board of Governors on Friday adjourned talks until Wednesday, to give diplomats a chance to revise a resolution drafted by the three European states condemning Iran’s concealment of atomic research which could be arms-related.
The new draft, obtained in full by Reuters, calls for the IAEA’s governing board to “meet immediately to consider all options at its disposal” if any further violations of Tehran’s international non-proliferation obligations are uncovered.
However, Western diplomats told Reuters US negotiators want a much stronger “trigger mechanism” that warns Iran clearly that if it has any more atomic secrets it will be reported to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
“That’s obviously not going to be acceptable to the Americans,” a Western diplomat said, adding that this wording was the subject of continued talks “at the highest levels” in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin.
The wording of the trigger is one of the main sticking points for the United States, which accuses Iran of wanting The Bomb. The diplomat said it was unclear when the four capitals would have an acceptable new draft to submit to the board.
The Germans are worried that too strong a trigger could alienate the Iranians, who deny wanting nuclear weapons, and cause them to curtail cooperation with the U.N, diplomats said.
However, the draft has some sharp language. It “strongly deplores Iran’s past failures and breaches of its obligation to comply with ... its Safeguards Agreement” under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Originally Washington had pushed the board to pass a resolution that would declare Iran in “non-compliance” with the NPT and would report it to the Security Council. However, US officials dropped these demands to facilitate a compromise.
The resolution is responding to a recent IAEA report that said Iran had concealed a uranium enrichment programme for 18 years and secretly reprocessed plutonium, usable in weapons.
It said there was “no evidence” of an arms programme but the jury was still out as to whether one existed. The resolution notes “with the gravest concern that Iran enriched uranium and separated plutonium in undeclared facilities, in the absence of IAEA safeguards”.
But it “welcomes Iran’s offer of active cooperation and openness and its positive response to the demands ... in the (September 12 IAEA) resolution” which gave Tehran until October 31 to come clean about the full extent of its nuclear programme.
US officials were supposed to help write the third draft of the resolution. In the end, diplomats said Washington was not so actively involved in the writing but mostly gave suggestions to France, Germany and Britain for inclusion in the new draft.
The resolution also “welcomes Iran’s decision to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and requests Iran to adhere to it”. It called for IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei to submit a new report to the board in mid-February.
An editorial in Iran’s conservative newspaper Jomhuri-ye Eslami warned US allies that they would be punished by Tehran.
“Our political an economic relations with countries like Japan, Australia and Canada must be reviewed after their full support was given to America in the IAEA,” it said.—Reuters