|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
EU Official Sees Iran Security Council Referral
France, Germany, the United Kingdom and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana are expected to brief European Union foreign ministers today on the proposal they plan to offer next month in nuclear negotiations with Iran, Reuters reported Friday (see GSN, July 15). The election as president of hard-liners Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, has led to increasing pessimism about the negotiations, officials said. “Most people still want to proceed and present the comprehensive package in August, once Ahmadinejad takes office, so that Iran has a clear choice between the benefits of cooperation and the risks of isolation,” said one EU official. “It is very, very difficult to see this ending up anywhere but in the [U.N.] Security Council,” said the official (Paul Taylor, Reuters, July 15). The European powers may be prepared to offer Tehran assistance in building nuclear energy reactors and a fuel supply, a top Iranian official said yesterday. Iranian negotiator Hossein Mousavian added, however, that Iran could resume uranium enrichment activities if the EU negotiators push to keep in place a voluntary suspension of the work. “We will continue negotiations because we are very close to a solution,” he said. “But continuing the suspension under current conditions is not possible, and if the Europeans don’t accept this, we will resume (uranium enrichment) activities at Isfahan,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 17). Iran announced today that an unsatisfactory European proposal could lead to quick resumption of uranium enrichment, Agence France-Presse reported. “(The European proposals) will be unacceptable if they do not acknowledge Iran’s right to (uranium) enrichment and Iran will not wait long before taking other decisions,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi (Agence France-Presse/TurkishPress.com, July 18). Meanwhile, Iran and Russia are investigating former Russian nuclear energy minister Yevgeny Adamov in connection with construction delays at Iran’s Bushehr power plant, AFP reported yesterday (see GSN, June 28). “We agreed on a parallel probe into the reasons why it took so long to implement this project. And we have reached not very pleasant conclusions,” said the president of Russia’s audit chamber, Sergei Stepashin. Adamov was arrested in Switzerland in May on charges of embezzlement related to U.S. nuclear security assistance funds. “The Iranians have many questions for former minister Adamov, because, according to their data, several projects worth a lot of money, millions of dollars, were paid for but have not been implemented,” Stepashin said. “We are waiting for our Iranian colleagues (to send us) documents and we will study them very closely with our specialists,” he said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, July 17).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
