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Iran: IAEA Not Ready to Rule on Tehran’s Nuclear Program The International Atomic Energy Agency is not yet ready to render a decision as to whether Iran’s nuclear program violates the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, diplomats said yesterday (see GSN, May 7). The agency is still reviewing the results of a February visit to Iranian facilities, Western diplomats said. While some observers expect the agency to report conclusively on Iran’s program at June 16 meeting of its board of governors, the diplomats doubted such a report would be ready. “It is still at the technical level,” a diplomat from a Western Security Council member said. “It has not reached the political level yet,” the diplomat added. U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday took a cautious attitude toward the June meeting. “We’ll wait and see what it says,” Bush said. “I’ve always expressed my concerns that the Iranians may be developing a nuclear program,” he added (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters/Environmental News Network, May 9). Technology Source Meanwhile, there are indications that the centrifuges Iran is using at a uranium-enrichment facility in the southern city of Natanz are of Pakistani origin, according to IAEA inspectors and senior U.S. officials (see GSN, March 11). During their February visit to Iranian nuclear facilities, IAEA inspectors were “shocked” to see that the design of the centrifuges being used at the Natanz plant were obviously of Pakistani origin, an agency official said. “The question is, where is the factory that supplied the Iranian facility at Natanz?” a senior IAEA official said. “Is it in Pakistan, or is it in North Korea?” the official added (NBC News/MSNBC.com, May 9). State Department Keeps Up Pressure Meanwhile, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher yesterday said Iran was conducting “an active pursuit of nuclear weapons” and questioned the need for Iran to seek nuclear energy facilities. “There is no economic justification for a state that’s rich in oil and gas like Iran to build hugely expensive nuclear fuel cycle facilities. Iran flares off more gas annually than the equivalent energy its desired nuclear reactors would produce. States with peaceful nuclear energy programs have nothing to hide, and Iran did its best to hide all of these nuclear fuel cycle activities,” Boucher said (State Department release, May 8).
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