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Iran, U.S. Trade Barbs on Proliferation, Disarmament By Joe Fiorill The remarks came during the opening day of an international nonproliferation conference organized by the PIR Center and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and attended by high-level officials and top experts from around the world. Amid widespread concern that Iran is seeking to develop a nuclear weapon under cover of legitimate nuclear activity, the IAEA board found last week that Iran has insufficiently explained contradictions between Tehran’s description of its programs and the findings of IAEA experts. As the board handed down a deadline to Tehran, the Iranian delegation walked out of the boardroom and appeared to threaten noncooperation with the agency — a threat since tempered. U.N. Undersecretary General for Disarmament Affairs Nobuyasu Abe, in a lunchtime address today, said, “There is an urgent need for Iran to accept the recent IAEA governing board resolution and to conclude and implement an Additional Protocol.” Such a protocol to Iran’s IAEA safeguards agreement has been called for by the agency, the United States and others and would allow for more intrusive IAEA monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities. U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow said this morning in an opening address to the conference that “there are very good reasons to ask whether Iran is heading down the same road” as countries such as North Korea. Vershbow said such countries demonstrate the “weakness” of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by remaining within the NPT framework long enough to obtain the building blocks of a weapon program, then abandoning the nonproliferation regime. In particular, Vershbow cited Iran’s refusal to let IAEA inspectors visit one site until after it had been substantially modified and the country’s shifting statements on whether elements of its uranium enrichment program are indigenous or imported. “Nothing about Iran’s behavior,” Vershbow said, “is consistent with what one would expect from a country that is honoring its NPT obligations. … Iran is a critical test for the NPT and the international community’s ability to give effective power to the IAEA.” Iranian Ambassador to Russia Gholamreza Shafei, in remarks read by an aide as part of a panel discussion this morning, largely avoided discussion of the specifics of the case against Iran. Another Iranian representative, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, who is deputy director general of international political affairs in Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said heightened questions about his country’s nuclear activity are the result not of suspicious behavior but of greater access granted in recent months to the IAEA. Shafei declared his country theologically opposed to nuclear weapons, alluded to Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapon program as unfair and criticized declared nuclear weapon states for insufficient progress toward disarmament. “The Islamic Republic of Iran believes, under Islamic principles and beliefs, … that nuclear weapons are inhuman and illegal, and in our defense doctrine, we have not included weapons of this kind,” Shafei said. Apparently referring to Israel, Shafei said the fact that some countries do not participate in the international nonproliferation regime is a “violation” of the regime that creates rivalries among countries. He called for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East and a “very just and nondiscriminatory global decision vis-a-vis international mechanisms of nonproliferation.” The Bushehr nuclear power plant, set to become Iran’s first major nuclear facility when Russia completes its construction, was also a focus of discussion today at the conference. Despite caution voiced by the United States, Russia has indicated it is moving ahead with agreements to supply Iran with fuel for the facility and to take back spent fuel from the reactor (see related GSN story, today). Shafei said Iranian-Russian nuclear cooperation is “pursued in the context of the peaceful use of nuclear energy” and is conducted with appropriate IAEA monitoring. He stressed that the IAEA’s role is not only to pursue suspected nuclear weapon proliferators but also to aid peaceful nuclear programs. “The A-bomb and the weapons of mass destruction,” Shafei said, “should have no place in this world. We are saying no to the A-bomb and WMD, but we are saying yes to the peaceful use of the atom. No one will ever be able to push us from this way we have taken.” Carnegie Endowment Senior Associate George Perkovich said Iran “shows the importance of having rules,” since the IAEA will resolve the situation if the country’s programs are in fact peaceful in nature. He added, though, that if Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon, the international nonproliferation system is “not designed to solve that problem” and that a “broader international effort” will be needed that addresses politics and security in Iran and its region. Perkovich said U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan or another high international official could “convene a regional dialogue of parties” to determine “just what is the future structure of the Persian Gulf security environment. U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev are scheduled to speak this evening at the conference.
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