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Iran Says it Will Resume Uranium Conversion Today
Iran announced it would break U.N. seals on its Isfahan uranium conversion plant today and resume work, Reuters reported (see GSN, July 29). “Iran sent a letter to the [International Atomic Energy Agency]. Iran is to remove the seals today,” said Supreme National Security Council spokesman Ali Aga-Mohammadi. “Iran has decided to resume the uranium conversion activities at ... Isfahan on Aug. 1,” says the letter, which was obtained by Reuters (Jon Hemming, Reuters, Aug. 1). Tehran had earlier announced that Monday was the final day that the European Union could halt the resumption of nuclear work by submitting its proposal on Iran’s atomic program. The European nations had already missed a Sunday deadline. “This is the last day that the Europeans can offer their proposals,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi. The European Union, however, said yesterday that it had only promised to deliver “full and detailed proposals” within the week (Reuters, Aug. 1). Iran had also said today it could delay resuming uranium conversion if the European negotiators agreed to discuss the possibility of allowing Tehran to enrich its own uranium, Reuters reported (Reuters II, Aug. 1). IAEA inspectors are already in Tehran, said Asefi said yesterday, and could quickly travel to Isfahan, where uranium conversion would take place, the Associated Press reported. “Since our nuclear policy is transparent and legal, we will start activity upon delivering the letter to the IAEA, with the inspectors in attendance,” Asefi said. Later Sunday, Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said the agency had not received any official notification from Iran about resumption of activity at Isfahan (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 31). The United Kingdom warned Tehran to retract its “unnecessary and damaging threat” to restart sensitive nuclear work, the London Times reported today. London announced that resuming nuclear work would probably kill the EU diplomatic effort to resolve the standoff. “The foreign ministers (of France, Germany and the United Kingdom) and the EU high representative have just written to Iran’s chief negotiator on nuclear activities — confirming that full and detailed proposals would be given to Iran in a week’s time,” the Foreign Office said in a statement (Navai/Rumbelow, The Times, Aug. 1). The European Commission also warned Iran not to resume nuclear work, Reuters reported. “The commission very much hopes for a negotiated solution. We would also hope that no steps would be taken over the coming days to endanger such a negotiated solution,” said a spokesman for the European Union executive (Reuters III, Aug. 1). The International Atomic Energy Agency would need at least three days to convene an emergency session if the situation were to intensify, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. “At least 72 hours” would be needed to convene an IAEA Board of Governors meeting, which has the authority to refer Iran’s case to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, an agency spokesman said (Agence France-Presse/IranMania.com, July 31). Meanwhile, the European Union is set to propose security guarantees for Tehran if it agrees to permanently end uranium enrichment, the Associated Press reported. The forthcoming proposal includes “guarantees about Iran’s integrity, independence, national sovereignty” and nonaggression toward Iran, top Iranian nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani told IRNA yesterday. “If Europe enjoys a serious political will about Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle, there will be the possibility of understanding,” IRNA quoted Rohani as saying. EU officials planned to offer Iran “security guarantees,” a senior European diplomat confirmed, but he added that no country could give “a 100 percent guarantee” to another country that it would not be invaded (Karimi, Associated Press, July 31). The European Union is also preparing to offer Iran economic cooperation and a guaranteed nuclear fuel supply in exchange for Tehran’s permanent renunciation of fissile material production, the Washington Post reported today. The offer would recognize Tehran’s right to a civilian nuclear program that is “safe, economically viable and proliferation proof,” diplomats close to the negotiations told the Post (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, Aug. 1). Washington last week provided Iranian diagrams, computer files and other Farsi-language documents to the International Atomic Energy Agency that allegedly point to Tehran’s possession of a nuclear warhead, the London Times reported. An Iranian “black box” is mentioned in of the Farsi-language documents acquired by the CIA, the Times reported, and U.S. nuclear experts reportedly believe “box” is a codename for a nuclear warhead. Mujaheddin-e-Khalk, a militant Iranian opposition organization labeled as a terrorist organization by the State Department, provided the documents. “I would take anything from them with a grain of salt,” said a former CIA counterintelligence director. The Bush administration, however, is proceeding “extremely carefully” in handling the new intelligence, said Judith Kipper, director of the Middle East Forum at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. “We’re certainly not seeing a rerun of Iraq,” she said. “I don’t think they’ll mess around with intelligence again” (Tony Allen-Mills, The Times, July 31). Meanwhile, the State Department Friday called on Tehran to respond to allegations that president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the captors who took hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, AP reported. “It is the responsibility of the Iranian government to respond to these charges frankly and clearly,” said spokesman Sean McCormack (Barry Schweid, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 29). Iran, meanwhile, said the U.S. accusations were due to frustration over its failure to influence Iran’s elections, Reuters reported. "Such remarks in the run-up to the transfer of power in the Islamic Republic of Iran derive from U.S. disillusion with Iran's independent policies and our nation's ignoring the White House demand to boycott the elections," Foreign Ministry spokesman Asefi said in a statement Friday (Reuters, July 30).
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