Iran Threatens to Curb IAEA Access

Iran warned today that it would reduce its cooperation with international nuclear inspectors if the U.N. Security Council imposes sanctions against Tehran, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 15).

There should “be no doubt that any hostile action by the U.N. Security Council would lead to limitation of cooperation with the (International Atomic Energy Agency),” Iranian Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh said today at the agency’s annual meeting in Vienna.

The solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis “is accessible through negotiations, relying on good faith, political will and flexibility,” he added (Michael Adler, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 18).

Reduced Iranian cooperation with the agency would severely limit the international community’s window on Iran’s nuclear activities, according to the Associated Press.  Iran has already scaled back the access it offers to nuclear inspectors, and the agency has complained that Iranian intransigence has limited its ability to confirm Tehran’s assertion that its nuclear program is peaceful.

The United States continued to apply rhetorical pressure today, perhaps in part to help European leaders forge progress in their own talks with Iran, AP reported.

“We believe it is their intention to make a nuclear weapon,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, in Vienna to address the conference (George Jahn, Associated Press I/San Diego Union-Tribune, Sept. 18).

In Washington, U.S. President George W. Bush said Iran’s diplomatic strategy could be one of buying time to advance its nuclear technology.  Bush is scheduled to address the U.N. General Assembly tomorrow.

“My concern is that they’ll stall, they’ll try to wait us out.  So part of my objective in New York is to remind people that stalling shouldn’t be allowed — we need to move the process,” he said Friday during a news conference.

“Should they choose to verifiably suspend their … enrichment program, we’ll come to the table,” he added.

“The offer still stands,” he said, referring to a package of incentives offered to Iran by the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany earlier this year.  The deal requires Iran to suspend sensitive nuclear activities before the nations meet to complete the details, a condition Iran has consistently refused (Bohan/John, Reuters I, Sept. 15).

Meanwhile, leading European nations have been considering the possibility of crafting an alternative meeting with Iran to shake free the current diplomatic standstill.

The question is “whether there could be a meeting — not necessarily with the United States — that would allow the Iranians to say there was a process of negotiations that had started and as a result of this, they decided to resume the suspension of uranium enrichment,” a diplomat told Reuters Saturday.  “The pressure is mounting for it to happen next week, that’s an obvious opportunity” (Carol Giacomo, Reuters II, Sept. 16).

French President Jacques Chirac suggested today that Iran would be free of Security Council sanctions if it returned to the negotiating table.

“We must, on the one hand, together, Iran and the six countries, meet and set an agenda, then start negotiations.  Then, during these negotiations, I suggest that the six nations renounce referring (Iran to) the U.N. Security Council and that Iran renounce uranium enrichment during negotiations,” he said in a radio interview (Associated Press II/International Herald Tribune, Sept. 18).

Israel yesterday urged the international community to act quickly against Iran, warning that Iran could soon master nuclear weapon technology.

“The crucial moment is not the day of the bomb,” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told CNN’s “Late Edition.”  “The crucial moment is the day in which Iran will master the enrichment (of uranium), the knowledge of enrichment,” she said.

Iranian leaders, she said, “are trying to send a message that it’s too late, you can stop your attempts because it’s too late.  It’s not too late.  They have a few more months” (Reuters III, Yahoo!News, Sept. 18)

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