U.N. Security Council Enacts New Iran Nuclear Sanctions

By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire

VIENNA — The U.N. Security Council today approved a third set of sanctions against Iran for the nation's refusal to curb its uranium enrichment program (see GSN, Feb. 29).

Fourteen Security Council nations backed the added penalties, while Indonesia abstained from the decision, the Associated Press reported.

The vote comes nearly a year after the council imposed the current batch of provisions to limit the travel of certain Iranian individuals and to freeze the foreign-held assets of a group of Iranian entities (see GSN, March 26, 2007).  That sanctions resolution, and a preceding one, demanded Iran freeze its uranium enrichment activities and other key nuclear activities.

Iran has refused to accede to these demands, however, and maintained its defiant stance today.  Prior to the vote, U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee said his nation’s “peaceful nuclear program” would not be deterred by the council’s “unlawful action,” AP reported.

Tehran has built about 3,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility in Natanz.  The top U.N. nuclear inspector in Vienna today noted Iran's continuing enrichment activity, but also observed that the nation has installed no new centrifuges since autumn of last year.

Details of the new sanctions were not available at press time.  The Security Council was expected to incrementally raise the level of punishment against Iran while seeking simultaneously to enable the nation to grab a set of economic and political incentives if Tehran forgoes nuclear programs that the United States and other Western nations fear will be used to pursue nuclear weapons.

On a parallel front in Vienna, Iran today weathered calls for it to improve its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The agency has nearly completed a “work plan” intended to fully understand Iran’s past nuclear activities, but Tehran’s goal of redemption after concealing its atomic programs for nearly two decades remains distant.

“Building confidence in the future is a matter that goes beyond inspection,” IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told a meeting of the agency’s governing board.  He called on Tehran to offer greater cooperation with the agency by answering more questions about several open topics, including Iran’s interest in missile research, shockwave studies and possible plans to excavate an explosive-testing site.  In addition, ElBaradei urged Iran to participate in regional talks to ease neighbors’ concerns about the nation’s nuclear ambitions.

“Only through negotiations can confidence be created and a comprehensive and durable solution to the Iran question achieved,” he said.  “This would be good for Iran, good for the region and good for the world.”

Agency officials on Feb. 25 for the first time showed governing board representatives evidence of a series of “alleged studies” that Iran has conducted on developing nuclear weapons.  The documents and video clips were cleared for use by the United States, which first provided the agency with the information about two years ago, according to officials (see GSN, Feb. 26).

The release highlighted Washington’s chosen role in the nuclear crisis — maintaining pressure on Tehran by steadily raising allegations and doubts.

“Despite some progress in addressing past issues, troubling questions remain about Iranian activities that strongly suggest a clandestine weapons-related program,” U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte said today.  “Between the indications of weapons work, which would constitute a violation of Iran’s [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] obligations, and Iran’s blatant violation of Security Council resolutions, there is strong reason for Iran’s file to remain open both in New York and in Vienna.”

Last week’s briefing “presented the board with a troubling mosaic of information from multiple sources developed over multiple years, activities that ranged from dual-use procurement to design of a missile re-entry vehicle,” he added.

Still, Schulte was careful not to contradict a December U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran ceased its weaponization efforts in late 2003.  That conclusion, released in an unclassified summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, has forced significant changes to U.S. public policy on Iran by undermining earlier claims that Tehran has actively been seeking nuclear weapons.

The IAEA presentation “indicated recent weaponization activities, but they weren’t claiming that those activities are continuing today,” Schulte said today.

For their part, Iranian officials in Vienna continued to give optimistic readings of reports and statements coming from the nuclear agency.

ElBaradei told the board today that the agency has “been able to clarify all but one of the remaining outstanding issues” in the work plan, but minutes later Iranian Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh said, “the issue of the alleged studies and, of course, the work plan and all outstanding issues are concluded.”

Soltanieh has argued that the agency has exceeded its mandate by investigating the alleged weaponization activities, saying that international inspectors have no right to study Iran’s conventional military programs, such as missile development.

In any case, “these documents, or allegations about these studies, are forged and fabricated,” Soltanieh told reporters today while declining to promise that Iran would provide much more of a defense against the allegations.

The Bush administration has deferred to European powers to lead efforts to engage Iran diplomatically and to craft resolutions in the U.N. Security Council and here at the agency board.

Diplomats are considering whether to seek an IAEA board resolution this week.  Some favor the idea of reasserting the role of the board — which has not approved any resolution on Iran since it referred the matter to the Security Council two years ago — while others fear that a resolution here would undermine the council, officials told Global Security Newswire.

Any Vienna resolution would probably call for continuing agency investigation, but would also praise Iran for its cooperation to date.  The Associated Press reported today that Russia had planned to block any Security Council resolution if the IAEA board indicated it would take action this week on Iran.

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