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Iran Backpedals, Promises Continuing IAEA Cooperation By Joe Fiorill As the International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference opened a weeklong meeting here today, Iranian Vice President for Atomic Energy Gholamreza Aghazadeh told the assembled delegates that Iran’s “cooperation with the agency within the framework of comprehensive safeguards shall continue as before” and that talks will continue on Iran’s signature of the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement. Three days ago, Iran walked out of an IAEA Board of Governors meeting as the board assigned it an Oct. 31 deadline for increasing cooperation (see GSN, Sep. 12). Minutes before the walkout, Iranian envoy Ali Akbar Salehi vowed Tehran would conduct a “deep review” of its cooperation with the agency — a relationship that includes regular IAEA activity in Iran and talks on the Additional Protocol, which would allow for more intrusive IAEA monitoring. Despite Iran’s more moderate statement today, there are indications that Tehran has not finalized its policy on how to handle IAEA demands for greater transparency of its nuclear ambitions. News agencies have reported that hard-line Iranian press commentators have called for Iran to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Salehi himself raised this possibility Wednesday in an interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel, in which he discussed possible Iranian responses to the then-proposed IAEA deadline. “We could at first limit our cooperation with the IAEA to a minimum, to that which we have committed ourselves. … We could also put a stop to cooperation. And as a last measure, I cannot rule out we could withdraw from the NPT,” he said. Yesterday, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tehran was still studying its options. “The nature of our cooperation with the IAEA is under consideration. The relevant authorities are discussing that and our decision will be made public in the future,” Hamid Reza Asefi said, as reported by Agence France-Presse. Top U.S. Official Weighs In The United States has led the way in voicing concerns that Iran could be seeking to develop a nuclear weapon under the cover of technical cooperation with the IAEA. Leading the U.S. delegation to this week’s general conference, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham today expressed caution about Iran’s latest vow to cooperate, as he expressed concern that Iran is seeking “capabilities that, obviously, can be used for evil purposes … nuclear weapons.” “This is pretty simple. I mean, either you’re pursuing a program that is a peaceful-use program, and you’ve got nothing to hide, or you’re not,” Abraham told reporters this afternoon. In the latter case, he said, contradictions between IAEA findings and Iranian claims about its nuclear program become “understandable.” “Time will tell, obviously,” Abraham said of Iran’s statement this morning, nevertheless calling the statement “a more hopeful comment.” The energy secretary said in a plenary speech earlier today that countries “must deal immediately and effectively with any state seeking to exploit the treaty to its own advantage.” Abraham said the case of North Korea, which ejected IAEA inspectors from its facilities in December, “send[s] a worrisome message to other would-be proliferants.” “That message,” he said, “asserts that a state can be a member of the NPT, enjoy its benefits and still put in place the assets it needs to break out of the treaty and pronounce itself a nuclear weapon state. This is the wrong message, and we must learn from this chain of events and not allow it to happen again.” The board’s resolution Friday, said Abraham, “makes clear that the D.P.R.K. precedent is unacceptable and that the nonproliferation regime can withstand serious challenges when member states are prepared to take firm and necessary action.” Aghazadeh said today that Iran supports strengthening the global IAEA nuclear safeguards regime for “strategic” reasons, mentioning Israeli nuclear weapons repeatedly as a prime Iranian concern. Keeping Iran’s nuclear energy program under IAEA safeguards, the vice president said, is in part intended to spur movement toward a Middle East nuclear weapon-free zone. Despite indicating that Iran will not turn its back on the safeguards regime over last week’s action, Aghazadeh took up this morning where Salehi left off Friday, sharply criticizing the United States in particular and the Board of Governors in general for the process that led to the U.S.-backed resolution to set the Oct. 31 deadline. In characterizing last week’s proceedings, Aghazadeh spoke of “false attribution [of positions] to the Secretariat,” “arm-twisting in many capitals” and “stonewalling” of Nonaligned Movement attempts to soften the board’s resolution and achieve consensus. “This is unilateralism at its worst — that is to say, extreme unilateralism posed under a multilateralist cloak. We believe there is more to this resolution than meets the eye at the first glance. There is an agenda behind it that is conceived in escalating tension and chaos to divert attention from serious issues that deal with partisan politics in the United States,” he said. Nevertheless, said Aghazadeh, “We will study the resolution carefully and will respond to it officially in a few days.” Asked about the charge of unilateralism, Abraham said, “The actions that were taken last week were not unilateral. They were consensus actions taken by this organization.” Technically, the board’s resolution Friday was not passed by consensus but simply approved without a vote. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei called it “essential and urgent that all outstanding issues [with Iran] — particularly those involving high-enriched uranium — be brought to closure as soon as possible,” adding that “this is in the interests of both Iran and the international community.” U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, in a message delivered today by Undersecretary General for Disarmament Affairs Nobuyasu Abe, praised the IAEA’s “continuing efforts to strengthen international safeguards — in particular, to promote conclusion of Additional Protocols by Iran and other states and to encourage other countries to conclude safeguards activities in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
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