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Powell Calls Draft European Resolution on Iran Inadequate
As international nuclear officials prepared to talk with the once-secret suppliers of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday said a draft European resolution on addressing Iran’s nuclear activities was “not adequate,” according to reports (see GSN, Nov. 18). France, Germany and the United Kingdom prepared a resolution for consideration by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors, which is due to begin discussing the issue tomorrow. The draft resolution criticizes Iran for a long history of concealing its nuclear development, but does not direct the agency to send the matter to the U.N. Security Council, according to Reuters. “The resolution that I was aware (of) being presented by the EU three was not adequate,” Powell said. “It did not have the trigger mechanisms in the case of further Iranian intransigence or difficulty,” he added (Long/Charbonneau, Reuters, Nov. 18). IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, meanwhile, said recently that his agency knows where Iran secretly obtained equipment for its nuclear development. “We know where the components that Iran says were contaminated came from. Our next priority is to go after the countries where they came from and talk to the governments. There are five, in Europe and Asia,” he said (Time, Nov. 24). On the IAEA debate, Powell said Washington might urge the board to produce no resolution at all if nations cannot agree on strong language. “The fact of the matter is that Iran has been in noncompliance,” Powell said. “We’ll be in discussion with our EU colleagues and other members of the IAEA as to whether or not the resolution is strong enough to convey to the world the difficulties we’ve had with Iran over the years,” he added. Iran urged the IAEA Board of Governors not to bend to U.S. lobbying. “America should abandon such useless pressures and stop imposing its ideas on the agency,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said (Long/Charbonneau, Reuters). ElBaradei said that U.S. officials need to allow U.N. inspectors resolve the questions over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. “Unless you are ready to bomb your way through every country you suspect of developing weapons of mass destruction, I see no alternative to international inspectors. The lesson of Iraq is that we should be very cautious about jumping to conclusions,” he said (Time). Iran’s top national security official, meanwhile, said that Tehran will not succumb to pressure to permanently abandon its uranium enrichment efforts. “We have said clearly that any phrase in a resolution aimed at transforming the voluntary pledge by Iran to suspend uranium enrichment into a legal obligation will be unacceptable to us,” Hassan Rohani said today (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Nov. 19). Acknowledging that Iran’s past nuclear activities were “not compatible” with its nonproliferation commitments, the European Union’s chief diplomat, Javier Solana, said that Europe would attempt “constructive engagement” with Tehran over the nuclear issue. European officials yesterday agreed to demand that Iran include a nonproliferation pledge in any future treaties (Christopher Marquis, New York Times, Nov. 19). Russian Atomic Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said that a deal to guarantee the return of spent nuclear fuel from a Russian-built nuclear reactor has been delayed again because Iranian nuclear experts “have no time” to finalize the agreement. “Deliveries are to begin not earlier than next year; for this reason we have at least three months to prepare for the signing of the agreement,” he said (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press, Nov. 19).
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