EU Recrafts Effort to Resolve Iranian Crisis, but Hurdles Remain

By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire

VIENNA — European diplomats attempted a new tactic today while trying to build greater pressure on Iran to cooperate fully with international nuclear inspectors, but the move faces significant hurdles that may prevent it receiving any more diplomatic support than prior efforts (see GSN, Sept. 21).

Earlier this week the European Union — led by France, Germany and the United Kingdom — spearheaded a push here for the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council. The move, strongly supported by the United States, is intended to push Tehran to offer more nuclear information to the agency, whose top official has complained of inadequate Iranian cooperation.

The three EU nations had been promoting a draft board resolution that would report Iran immediately to the council. However, officials here said the draft faced rigid opposition from Russia and China — both with Security Council veto powers — and from the so-called Nonaligned Movement, represented by a loose bloc of 14 board members from developing nations.

With a goal of passing that resolution by consensus seemingly out of reach, the EU nations late yesterday tried a new draft resolution that does not immediately send the matter to the council.

Rather, it “finds that Iran’s many failures and breaches of obligations to comply with its [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] safeguards agreement … constitute noncompliance in the context of … the agency’s statute.”

Only once before, in the case of North Korea, has the agency board found a nation in “noncompliance” during a dispute. In the case of Iran, the board last year found Iran guilty only of “many breaches” of its nuclear disclosure obligations.

The new term is significant because the agency statute says, “The board shall report the noncompliance to all members and to the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations.”

Diplomats said the new draft would therefore still appear to cause Iran to be reported to the Security Council, but the question of when and what to say in that report would remain at the board’s discretion.

Speeches made to the board this morning suggest that this new approach would not find consensus support either because of the apparent inevitability of Security Council involvement.

“Any remaining problems pertaining to the issue of Iran’s nuclear program should be resolved only within the framework of the IAEA,” said Malaysian Ambassador Rajmah Hussein, who spoke on behalf of the Nonaligned Movement.

Russia and China, the primary targets of the new EU draft, are also unlikely to support the new resolution.

“I don’t think it’s even close,” said one Western diplomat.

Another official who heard today’s speeches quoted Russia’s ambassador as saying that Moscow “believes in keeping the consensus, as a common approach,” and was “against any heightening of the issue, including referral to the Security Council. That would be counterproductive both towards Iran’s nuclear program and on the NPT.”

China also opposed Security Council referral, although its board statement “was a little bit more mild,” said the Western diplomat.

With apparently little prospect for consensus, the EU nations could revert to their earlier draft and seek its passage by a majority vote of the 35 board members. A slim majority supports the earlier draft, several officials said, but a nonconsensus decision would be considerably weaker than one with the full support of parties.

The board has never made a decision on nuclear safeguards without consensus, according to a diplomat closely familiar with the agency’s history.

That prospect now appears real.

The EU nations “thought that the second draft would enable some countries who were against [the first draft] to come on board [the second]. I suspect that if they find that none of the countries come on board the second draft, or not a significant type [Russia and China], then they might just go for the first one,” said the Western diplomat. Other officials concurred.

Iran, meanwhile, complained that IAEA criticisms were unfounded and delivered a spirited defense today of its cooperation with the agency and of its peaceful nuclear aims.

Ambassador Mohamed Mahdi Akhondzadeh delivered a six-page account of the many areas in which Iran has provided information to the agency in an effort to rebut charges that it must provide more.

On Monday, agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters, “The material that has been declared to us in Iran is accounted for and is under safeguards, but we are not yet in a position to say that all nuclear material and activity in Iran has been declared to us.”

In response today, Akhondzadeh issued an invitation to ElBaradei to visit Tehran to “discuss … the remaining outstanding issues and how to enhance cooperation with the IAEA.”

“Haste here can make terrible waste,” Akhondzadeh said. “Let us put the threat back in the drawers, return to negotiations and give ourselves time to resolve this matter in peace.”

Neither of the two EU draft resolutions has been formally presented, and the board recessed today after its morning session to let delegations continue their negotiations.

It is theoretically possible that the meeting could end tomorrow with no decisions at all, but most officials here said there was considerable pressure to reach some decision by the end of the week.

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