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IAEA Governors Accept Iran’s Additional Protocol; Talks on Resolution Delayed By Joe Fiorill VIENNA — The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors today approved the Additional Protocol to Iran’s IAEA safeguards agreement, clearing the way for Iran and agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to sign the measure (see GSN, Nov. 20). That progress was counterbalanced, however, by the board’s decision to push back formal discussion on passing a resolution on Iran’s nuclear activities and by a semantic dispute between ElBaradei and U.S. officials over whether the terms “evidence” and “proof” are synonymous. The board’s decision to put off further discussion of the Iran resolution clouded the outlook for Iranian signature of the protocol, which would allow the agency to conduct more intrusive monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities. The meeting was initially expected to end today, but with the weekend at hand and a U.N. holiday Tuesday, delegates are now scheduled to reconvene Wednesday to take up the resolution. The meeting follows an IAEA report to the board last week that described how Iran has now acknowledged hiding extensive nuclear activity since the mid-1980s, including small-scale plutonium and low-enriched uranium production. The report in turn followed an Iranian promise late last month to sign the protocol and suspend uranium enrichment. Talks here this week have focused on a resolution developed by France, Germany and the United Kingdom, which were instrumental in obtaining last month’s Iranian promise of increased cooperation. The United States and the European countries have been facing off over the resolution, which the United States calls too weak. In remarks here yesterday and today, Iranian envoy Ali Akbar Salehi has spoken of a “package deal” whereby Iran would sign and implement the protocol and suspend uranium enrichment in exchange for economic and other incentives offered by the Europeans and, potentially, for board action that falls short of sending the matter to the U.N. Security Council, as advocated by the United States. Although Salehi said today that Iran is “not putting any conditions” on the Additional Protocol, he hastily added that the protocol was generated by Iran’s “cooperation with the Europeans” and even added, “It’s a package deal.” Iran yesterday obtained a change in the meeting agenda, postponing approval of the protocol until the resolution’s character became clearer, but the original chronology was restored today by the board’s action on the protocol. In the words of a Western diplomat here, though, “there’s still a logjam” affecting the board’s work because of Iran’s insistence on a comprehensive, rather than a step-by-step, approach to the protocol and the resolution. The board’s approval of the protocol, which ElBaradei called “quite a positive move forward,” puts more pressure on Iran, reducing the leverage it sought to wield by balking yesterday at taking up the protocol as scheduled. “They could [still] change their mind” about signing the measure, but “that wouldn’t be looked upon so kindly,” IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said today of Iranian authorities. Meanwhile, a core group of key countries, such as the United States, the European drafters of the resolution, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Netherlands, is struggling to reach consensus on a text before presenting it to other board members unofficially and, ultimately, table it before the full board. Diplomats said today that the bulk of work on the measure was being done in national capitals, not here at the IAEA. “The resolution is not ready. … The text of the resolution is not agreed, that’s what it comes down to,” Fleming said after today’s morning session, adding that the resolution is “the only thing that has been held up.” ElBaradei said a resolution could be tabled Wednesday, “to be adopted, I still believe, by consensus.” Despite such optimism, differences among delegations here appeared to be sharpening this morning. The United States, in particular, delivered a long statement excoriating Iran for its “egregious conduct” and insisting countries “do all [they] possibly can to ensure it remains an exceptional case.” In an implicit reference to European countries’ recent focus on Iran’s new willingness to reveal once-covert activities, U.S. envoy Kenneth Brill told the board, “This is not the case of a state that may have violated its safeguards obligations and lied in an attempt to cover up its noncompliance but in the end took responsibility for violating its international obligations in a way that provides confidence of future compliance. Quite the opposite is the case.” “Neither the board nor the secretariat nor any member state,” Brill said, “knows whether Iran has ‘turned over a new leaf.’ Iran says it has, but so much of what it has said in the past year about its nuclear program has turned out to be false that there is no rational basis simply to assume the contrary now. Iran is asking us to pass over its record of deception on the strength of today’s bare assurances that now it is telling the truth. No serious observer of Iran’s record can accept that argument.” Salehi dismissed U.S. arguments, alleging that the United States is inflexibly refusing to take new developments in Iran into account. “The American delegation … is sort of a hostage to its own accusations, past accusations,” Salehi said. In response to such language, one Western diplomat said Iran is holding the Additional Protocol “hostage” to other concerns. Breach or Noncompliance?Much of the debate here centers on whether Iran should be found in “breach” or in “noncompliance” with its obligations, or whether another term altogether should be employed. A finding of noncompliance would greatly facilitate a referral of Iran’s conduct to the Security Council, but ElBaradei has limited himself to the term “breach,” and the initial European draft reportedly contained neither word. Brill today sought to cut through the semantic dispute. Citing ElBaradei’s assessment in last week’s report that Iran committed “breaches of its obligation to comply with the provisions of the safeguards agreement,” the U.S. ambassador asked, “Does the phrase ‘breached its obligation to comply’ differ from ‘noncompliance with its obligations’?” “In fact,” Brill said, “there is no substantive difference in meaning, and to any objective reader of the D.G.’s report there can be no doubt that Iran’s conduct, stretching back for well over a decade, constitutes noncompliance with its safeguards obligations.” “If the board fails to find noncompliance,” he said, “we will send the message to states throughout the world that they, too, can disregard their safeguards obligations in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction without repercussions.” Furthermore, said Brill, “discussions with other delegations” leave “no doubt” that “almost everyone here agrees privately that Iran’s actions constituted noncompliance.” Objections to using the term, he said, stem from both a focus on Iran’s recent increased cooperation and from a fear that “unless its past conduct is overlooked, Iran may lapse back into its prior pattern of violations, or even worse.” The Nonaligned Movement, which has consistently argued for a more lenient approach toward Iran, appears unconvinced by arguments such as those advanced by the United States. In a statement today on behalf of the movement that focused almost exclusively on Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA, Malaysian envoy Hussein Haniff said the movement “notes with concern” Iran’s illicit nuclear programs ― language that was included in the initial British-French-German draft and ridiculed by diplomats from some other Western countries. Evidence or Proof?Another semantic dispute that has ruffled feathers here stems from the IAEA’s view, stated in last week’s report, that “there is no evidence [Iran’s] activities were related to a nuclear weapons program.” ElBaradei changed “evidence” to “proof” in a statement yesterday to the board, and Brill said today that the report’s “wording is, at best, very questionable.” Despite IAEA assurances that the words are synonymous, he said, it “is clearly not normal usage” to equate the two. In the United States, Brill added, “This misleading phrasing moved both government officials and academic experts across the political spectrum to expressions of disbelief that the institution charged by the international community with scrutinizing nuclear proliferation risks was dismissing important facts that had been disclosed by its own investigation as irrelevant to the question of whether Iran has a nuclear weapons program.” According to a transcript of the closed meeting, ElBaradei moved “right away” to “set the record straight” after Brill’s remarks. “We used the word ‘evidence’ here as we have used it over the last year, repeatedly, in the case of Iraq. Our reports on Iraq, without exception, said that we had no evidence that Iraq had resuscitated its nuclear weapons program,” ElBaradei said. “We have used the word ‘evidence’ to mean ‘proof.’ I checked my copy of Black’s Law Dictionary this morning; it says that ‘“proof” and “evidence” may be used interchangeably,’” said the IAEA chief. Brill also cited “damage caused to the agency’s credibility by this highly unfortunate and misleading ‘no evidence’ turn of phrase” ― a view ElBaradei opposed, saying the IAEA “maintain[s] [its] credibility by continuing to be impartial and factual.” “The agency was criticized by some before the war with regard to our conclusions on Iraq. I believe we can proudly say that, because we stood our ground, our credibility in retrospect has been not only maintained but in fact enhanced. We reflect facts as radar does, without partiality. We do not jump to conclusions or make leaps of faith, and that is how we intend to continue on my watch,” the director general said. A Western diplomat here termed the open dispute between the IAEA and the United States “very unusual … possibly unprecedented.”
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