IAEA Resumes Centrifuge Talks With Iran

International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards head Olli Heinonen began three days of talks in Tehran today over Iran’s progress in installing uranium-enriching centrifuges and developing a new line of high-speed centrifuges, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 26).

“So far we have done many things but there remains a lot of other work that hopefully will be done," Iranian state media quoted Heinonen as saying upon arrival in Tehran.

Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s atomic energy organization, said he would work with the agency to clarify the nation’s nuclear ambitions before the U.N. nuclear watchdog reports to the United Nations on progress in negotiations next month.

"It is possible that the agency raises new questions and points, before ElBaradei's report, under the framework of the same (previous) questions," he said.

"In this case, we will provide the necessary answers."

Saeedi said the sides would soon reach a final conclusion in their talks through "explicit and open discussions" on the P-1 centrifuges being installed and the P-2 centrifuges under development (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Oct. 29).

IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei said yesterday that his agency has not obtained any evidence suggesting that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, AFP reported.

“We haven't received any information there is a parallel, ongoing, active nuclear weapon program," he said.

"Even if Iran were to be working on nuclear weapons … they are at least (a) few years away from having such weapon," ElBaradei said, referring to U.S. intelligence estimates.

"My fear (is) that if we continue to escalate from both sides that we will end up into a precipice, we will end up into an abyss.  The Middle East is in a total mess, to say the least.  And we cannot add fuel to the fire" (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Oct. 28).

French Defense Minister Herve Morin responded today to ElBaradei’s statement by saying that evidence suggests that Iran has been developing nuclear weapons, AFP reported.

“Our information, matching those of other countries, gives us the opposite feeling,” he said (Agence France-Presse III/Spacewar.com, Oct. 29).

An exiled Iranian opposition group said Friday that Iran could develop a nuclear bomb in two years and urged Europe to end its “policy of appeasement,” AFP reported.

“Two years is enough for the Iranian regime to complete its nuclear weapons program," said Mohammad Mohaddessin, foreign affairs chief for the National Council of Resistance of Iran.   He did not provide evidence to support the claim, which places Iran years closer to a nuclear weapon than other estimates (Agence France-Presse IV/EUBusiness, Oct. 26).

Meanwhile, the Bush administration on Friday dismissed comparisons between current statements on Iran and its rhetoric before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, AFP reported. 

"I don't think there are any parallels to draw at all,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

When Fratto was questioned on whether the United States was moving toward military intervention in Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons program, he said, "I think we're very, very hopeful that it won't."

“We are absolutely committed to a diplomatic process.  We would never take options off the table, but the diplomatic process is what we want to move forward with," he said (Olivier Knox, Agence France-Presse V/Yahoo!News, Oct. 26).

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) yesterday defended the Bush administration’s refusal to rule out military action in dealing with Iran, the New York Times reported.

“I think the president is dead right,” he said in reference to a statement by U.S. President George W. Bush that a nuclear-armed Iran could trigger “World War III.” 

“I think the president is justified in trying to wake up the world, wake up Russia, wake up the European nations,” Graham said.

“We need to be more aggressive,” he said.  “We don’t need to talk softly, we need to act boldly, because time is not on our side.”

Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) took the opposite view, arguing that although a “tighter rope” around Iran is necessary, it is important not to “just give Iran a propaganda weapon — don’t just give them a can of gasoline to pour onto the fire.”

“That’s what this hot rhetoric does when it’s just constantly repeated about World War III, or ‘We’re going to use a military option,’” said Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.  “We ought to dial down the rhetoric.”

Levin said that Western powers should offer “carrots” to Iran rather than just “sticks,” referring to political and economic incentives offered in nuclear negotiations with North Korea (Brian Knowlton, New York Times, Oct. 29).

Concerned with the possibility of a destabilizing war in nearby Iran, European nations have debated how to respond to Tehran’s nuclear standoff with the West as France and the United Kingdom have pushed for independent EU sanctions, the Associated Press reported Saturday.

While France was long thought to consider Iran too profitable a business partner to consider sanctions against the country, it has now joined the United Kingdom in its desire to financially isolate the nation.

Other European nations remain reserved about the possibility of new sanctions against Iran, a divide reminiscent of divisions before the invasion of Iraq.

“It's not unthinkable that (Europe) could reach symbolic sanctions, but it will be complicated to get much further.  There's just too much division," said Philippe Moreau-Defarges of the French Institute for International Relations.  "France is pretty isolated, aside from Britain" (Jamey Keaten, Associated Press/Google News, Oct. 27).

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni today called for a new sense of urgency in dealing with Iran during a three-day visit to China, AFP reported.

"We must rise above national interests or economical considerations and think about the grave implications that a nuclear Iran will have on the stability of the planet," Livni said today at Beijing's People's University.

“It is time to expand them and adopt a new Security Council resolution … on new deeper and more effective sanctions," the Israeli Foreign Ministry quoted her as saying in a meeting at a Chinese research center (Ron Bousso, Agence France-Presse VI/Yahoo!News, Oct. 29).

Over the last nine months, the United Kingdom has approved about 60 Iranian postgraduate students to study “proliferation-sensitive” subjects such as nuclear physics, microbiology and certain electrical and chemical engineering fields, the London Times reported yesterday.

According to David Willetts, an official monitoring university education, 30 Iranians were conducting postgraduate studies in nuclear physics and nuclear engineering from 2005 to 2006.

“Given that we need to have tougher sanctions against Iran, it does seem extraordinary that the government is not yet stopping Iranians coming here to study nuclear physics.  There is legitimate concern about what some students have been studying,” Willetts said.

The United Kingdom’s Foreign Office said this weekend that it was reviewing security concerns over the Iranian students and planned to establish new security standards within the next several weeks.

The tightened regulations are expected to cover the studies of metallurgy, molecular biology, chemistry and nuclear science.

Currently, a university must elect to inform the government that a student from a non-EU country has been approved to study a sensitive area before an investigation can take place.

In the past, the United Kingdom has served as a place of study for researchers from states conducting controversial weapons activities.  Between 1980 and 1984, the Iraqi microbiologist Rihab Taha (see GSN, March 14, 2006) studied at the University of East Anglia.  Taha later rose to a key position in Iraq’s biological weapons program and earned the nickname “Dr. Germ” (Jack Grimston, London Times, Oct. 28).

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