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U.S. to Push for Security Council Referral of Iran
The United States will continue to advocate that Iran’s nuclear activities be referred for debate in the U.N. Security Council, a senior U.S. official said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 28). Sending Iran’s case to the Security Council would alter the international community’s perceptions of Tehran’s nuclear work, which would in turn put pressure on the Islamic republic, said Undersecretary of State John Bolton, speaking at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “It would cause a change in the global political calculus, which should change the cost-benefit analysis in Tehran,” Bolton said. Bolton said that, while the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency includes monitoring nuclear safeguards agreements under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the agency is required to refer cases to the Security Council once “questions arise” in connection with compliance. Iran’s case has met that condition, he said. “Moving the Iran question to the Security Council should be a matter of the smooth functioning of the IAEA system,” Bolton said. “At a minimum, we say there are questions that have arisen about what Iran’s nuclear program is about — quite apart from the fact that it has violated its safeguards agreements, repeatedly, as the [IAEA] board found in November,” he said. He added that it was particularly important that Russia consider how its agreement with Iran to build a light-water reactor near Tehran affects Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons drive. “I think one of the concerns that we’ve had with Russia is that their involvement in the Iranian nuclear program, the construction of the Bushehr reactor and the supply of fuel for that reactor, puts them in the position of a supplier to Iran. And they are concerned that if they were to withdraw from Bushehr, they would simply be replaced by some other commercial entity from another country,” he said. “I can understand that commercial concern, but that’s not the approach that we would like them to have. And I think seeing the issue in their capacity as one of the five permanent members in the Security Council would have an effect on the way they view it,” he added. Asked if the nuclear weapons programs of other countries in the region such as India, Pakistan and possibly Israel may have influenced Iran’s alleged drive to acquire such a capability, Bolton pointed out Iran’s international agreements to forego such development. “Iran has joined the NPT as a nonweapons state. Now if it’s got a concern with its security because of Pakistan or some other country … and it wants to pursue nuclear weapons legitimately, then it can withdraw from the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty,” he said (Marina Malenic, Global Security Newswire, Sept. 29). Russian officials said today that they oppose sending Iran’s case to the Security Council, Agence France-Presse reported. “Moving this question to the Security Council, which is a political body, does not correspond to the interests of the issue,” said Igor Ivanov, head of Russia’s Security Council. “This question falls under the mandate of the IAEA, and the IAEA is ready to continue this work” (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 29). Elsewhere, diplomats said yesterday that initial tests of soil samples taken from Iran’s Lavizan Shiyan military complex — which satellite photos indicated had been razed earlier this year (see GSN, July 29) — revealed no indications of nuclear activity, the Associated Press reported. The diplomats added, however, that the agency’s investigation of the site was not yet complete. “We have still not looked at all results” of environmental sampling, said one diplomat (George Jahn, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 28). Meanwhile, Iranian officials yesterday said they are urging European countries to create “new mechanisms” for verification of Tehran’s nuclear work that would avoid referral to the Security Council, while some Iranian lawmakers proposed withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The withdrawal legislation, drafted by leading conservative lawmaker Hassan Kamran, only needs support from 15 of 290 legislators to be submitted to parliament, Reuters reported. “The bill obliges the government to pull out of the NPT if the International Atomic Energy Agency does not meet the [November] deadline” to remove Iran from the agenda for its meeting that month, Kamran told Iran’s state-run news service (Parisa Hafezi, Reuters, Sept. 28). Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said yesterday he recently proposed creating an inspection “contract” with Europe, Russia, China and nonaligned countries at the United Nations that would “help the [negotiation] process to be continued inside” the IAEA, the Los Angeles Times reported. “We are looking for some contract or mechanism that lets us continue with our right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including producing fuel for power plants, and on the other hand, to remove the concerns of others and assure them Iran is not going to divert (uranium) towards a nuclear weapons program,” Kharazi said, adding that Tehran was willing to consider “any kind of verification mechanism … to make sure there is no secret program.” Kharazi did not specify what he wanted in the contract, according to the Times. He invited other foreign ministers to create an agreement in the same spirit as the pact Iran made with the United Kingdom, France and Germany last year in which Tehran agreed to suspend its enrichment activities in return for European assistance with peaceful nuclear technology (Farley/Marshall, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 29). “We are against (a) nuclear bomb. And it’s not part of our defense strategy,” said Kharazi. He added that IAEA inspectors had not found evidence of nuclear weapons development in Iran. “Iran is quite transparent. All sites are under inspection,” he said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 28).
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