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United States May Refrain From Pushing ElBaradei to Step Down After Second IAEA Term
While U.S. officials have said that International Atomic Energy Director General Mohamed ElBaradei should step down at the end of his second term in office, they might not want to spark a political battle by formally opposing his interest in a third term, Reuters reported Saturday (see GSN, Sept. 30). “We’d rather see an elegant way out for everybody. What we’re seeking is a resolution that doesn’t force the issue,” a senior U.S. official said. The United States supports the “Geneva rule” — a position taken by the top 10 funding contributors to international organizations that heads of such agencies should not serve more than two terms. U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton and other Bush administration officials have been highly critical of ElBaradei and the U.N. nuclear watchdog for being too easy on suspected nuclear weapons developers such as Iran and North Korea. Bolton might push for ElBaradei’s ouster if President George W. Bush is re-elected on Nov. 2, another senior U.S. official said. That battle “could be nasty,” the official said. Democratic presidential hopeful Senator John Kerry (Mass.) has not developed a position on the issue, according to Kerry campaign sources. While some Kerry advisers might also like to see a new IAEA director general, “We’d have to look at the political consequences,” one Democratic insider told Reuters. Senior Bush officials, however, admitted there is no obvious replacement for ElBaradei and that there is some reluctance to forcibly oust another Egyptian U.N. diplomat, following the exit of Egyptian-born, single-term U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, engineered by the Clinton administration. Some officials fear such a move would exacerbate anti-American feelings in the world’s most populous Arab country (Carol Giacomo, Reuters, Oct. 23).
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