Iran Limits Nuclear Talks to IAEA

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today that his government would not discuss its nuclear program with any party but the International Atomic Energy Agency, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 4).

“From now on our nuclear issue is with the agency only and we will not negotiate with anyone outside the agency about Iran's nuclear issue,” the Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.  Iran has previously conducted talks with European diplomats regarding its atomic activities.

The announcement followed the enactment of new U.N. Security Council sanctions this week aimed at pressuring Tehran to stop nuclear efforts that international powers suspect could be aimed at nuclear weapons production (see related GSN story, today). 

“The new resolution issued by the Security Council on Iran's nuclear issue lacks legal credibility,” Ahmadinejad added.  “This resolution does not have any importance to us” (Reuters/Yahoo!News, March 5).

Iran yesterday called the resolution “worthless” and said it would continue its uranium enrichment program in defiance of council demands, the Associated Press reported.  The uranium enrichment process can yield a nuclear weapon ingredient, but Tehran insists it is pursuing it solely to produce nuclear power plant fuel

The Iranian comments suggest the Security Council took appropriate action by passing the sanctions, said Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“That shows that they don't like what has happened, which means that we've done the right thing, because they are in violation of two previous resolutions and we have to do something that indicates displeasure and causes more pressure on them,” he said (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press I/Google News, March 5).

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin yesterday urged Iran to carefully consider a statement by the five permanent Security Council member nations and Germany offering political and economic incentives for halting its uranium enrichment program.

“We hope (it) is being very carefully read in Tehran because it does indicate some very important motives … and intentions of the six in working with Iran,” Churkin said, adding that the Security Council’s 15 members had “rallied” around the statement.

Russian nuclear fuel being delivered to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant ensures Tehran a reliable fuel supply for years, eliminating its need for an indigenous uranium enrichment capacity, Churkin said.

“That new reality on the ground should provide another incentive, another opportunity for Iran to be more accommodating to the requirement of enrichment suspension,” he said (Edith Lederer, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, March 5).

The resolution’s passage highlighted a divide between the world’s most powerful countries, which pushed hardest for the sanctions, and developing nations that more often sympathized with Iran, the Christian Science Monitor reported today.

The nonpermanent Security Council members Indonesia, Libya and South Africa expressed skepticism of the calls for new sanctions and carefully considered Iran’s claim that major world powers were seeking to maintain a monopoly on valuable nuclear technologies.

South African U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo urged the council to delay voting on the resolution until the U.N. nuclear watchdog reported on its investigation of Iran’s past nuclear activities, and Indonesia abstained when the vote came.

Marty Natalegawa, Indonesia’s U.N. envoy, said his country abstained because the resolution did not consider Iran’s cooperation with the international community, which he called a “mixed picture.”  He added that Iran could further reduce cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency in response to the new sanctions.

The resolution also suggested that European powers have assumed leadership in the campaign for the sanctions against Iran, a mantle that had long been carried by the United States.

Western nations partly wanted to play down the perception of a two-way rivalry between Tehran and Washington, said Ray Takeyh, an Iran analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations.  “They want to emphasize that it's not the U.S. versus Iran,” he said.

U.S. bargaining power against Iran was also undermined last December with the release of an intelligence assessment that Tehran had suspended nuclear weapons development in 2003.

France and Germany have become concerned that they could fall within the range of a ballistic missile being developed in Iran, particularly in light of documents shown by IAEA officials last week indicating that Tehran had worked on building a nuclear warhead in the past (Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor, March 5).

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