Global Security Newswire

Iran should substantively support a high-level International Atomic Energy Agency delegation's efforts to gather information on signs that the Middle Eastern country has sought a nuclear-weapon capacity, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told Agence France-Presse on Friday (see GSN, Jan. 26; Agence France-Presse I/Daily Star, Jan. 27).

Senior U.N. nuclear watchdog officials are scheduled on Sunday to begin a three-day trip to Iran aimed at resolving points of dispute over the country's past atomic activities, the organization said earlier this week (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Jan. 23). The agency in November noted "serious concerns" that the Persian Gulf regional power was seeking a nuclear-weapon capacity; Tehran insists its atomic activities are strictly nonmilitary in nature (see GSN, Nov. 9, 2011).

"We hope they (Iran) will take a constructive approach. We hope that there will be substantial cooperation," Amano told AFP.

The agency cannot yet say without doubt that Iran was carrying out nuclear arms efforts, but it possesses "information that indicates that Iran has engaged in activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device," he said while attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"We are requesting that Iran clarifies the situation. We proposed to make a mission and they agreed to accept the mission," Amano said. "The preparations have gone well but we need to see what actually happens when the mission arrives" (Agence France-Presse I).

The agency cannot confirm that Iran has disclosed all aspects of its nuclear program, Bloomberg quoted the IAEA chief as saying.

“We are not very sure that Iran has declared everything,” he said.

"We have requested Iran to engage with us to clarify the decisions,” Amano added. “Iran has a case to answer” (Kennedy/Tirone, Bloomberg, Jan. 27).

Any new Iranian disclosures to the delegation probably would not be sufficient to defuse the international crisis over Tehran's activities, specialists said in comments reported by AFP on Friday. The group would not be permitted to visit locations of concern noted in the agency's November assessment, according to experts.

"This is not a verification mission," former IAEA safeguards chief Olli Heinonen said. "I don't think we should expect too much."

"My impression from the Iranian public statements is that this is talks about talks. If you look at who is going, [the IAEA delegation] is not an overly technical team," Heinonen added. The U.N. group is expected to be headed by Herman Nackaerts, who succeeded Heinonen as the agency's top inspections official, and IAEA Assistant Director General Rafael Grossi.

U.S. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said the agency "has been in and out of Iran for years and has yet to be fully satisfied with regard to Iran's program."

"There is a lot of work to do. Obviously, one visit by itself ... by the IAEA after all this time can't constitute a complete substantive cooperation and transparency that we, the international community, the IAEA, are calling for," she said.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace analyst Mark Hibbs said Iran has repeatedly in past years devised "some gambit ... whenever it is facing the threat of sanctions and punishment."

"It is conceivable that after the meeting with the IAEA, and after discussing the issues with the P-5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany), that in the short term it could result in a commitment to come up with a road map for a long-term negotiation.

"But we haven't seen anything since 2003 that looks like that," Hibbs said (Agence France-Presse II/Now Lebanon, Jan. 27).

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday said the "onus is on Iran" to assuage international fears over its atomic activities, the Associated Press reported.

"They have to prove themselves that their nuclear development program is genuinely for peaceful purposes, which they have not done yet," Ban said in Davos.

Discussions between Iran and the six world powers offer the only possible means of ending the standoff, the U.N. chief added.

"There is no other alternative for addressing this crisis than peaceful ... resolution through dialogue," he said (Associated Press I/Newsday, Jan. 27).

Meanwhile, Tokyo might dispatch high-level representatives to the United States early next month for talks on potentially reducing Japanese power-related imports from Iran, Kyodo News quoted a Japanese Foreign Ministry insider as saying on Thursday. The sides would address recently enacted U.S.-coordinated penalties targeting the Persian Gulf power (Kyodo News/Mainichi Daily News, Jan. 27).

Eighty-nine U.S. lawmakers pressed the Obama administration in a letter on Thursday to make full use of authorities provided in a budget law signed last month to penalize businesses carrying out sensitive transactions with Iran, Representative Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) said (see GSN, Jan. 3).

"Upon signing the bill, you indicated that the sanctions program language was advisory only. It is not," states the communication inked by Democratic and Republican legislators in the House of Representatives. "We respectfully urge you to clarify that your intent is to fully and forcefully implement these provisions" (U.S. Representative Peter Roskam release, Jan. 27).

Only through swift action can the international community prevent an Iranian nuclear arms drive from becoming invulnerable to the "surgical" use of armed force, AP quoted Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak as saying on Friday.

Iran's financial and petroleum sectors must be further isolated to determine "early enough whether the Iranians are ready to give up their nuclear weapons program," he said.

"We are determined to prevent Iran from turning nuclear. And even the American president and opinion leaders have said that no option should be removed from the table and Iran should be blocked from turning nuclear.

"It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them," Barak said (John Heilprin, Associated Press II/Google News, Jan. 27).

"You can't conceive of a stable world order when Iran has nuclear weapons," the London Guardian quoted him as saying.

"Iran is prepared to defy and deceive the whole world to turn themselves into a nuclear power. This will be the end of any conceivable antiproliferation program. Major powers in the region will feel compelled to turn nuclear," he said, citing Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey (Larry Elliott, London Guardian, Jan. 27).

Israel has determined in an official assessment that a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities is unlikely to trigger an overwhelming backlash as Tehran has suggested, the New York Times reported on Thursday. The report takes into account Iran's goals and capabilities, as well as past reactions by Middle Eastern nations to armed engagements in the region.

“If you put all those retaliations together and add in the terrorism of recent years, we are probably facing some multiple of that,” said one former government insider. “I’m not saying Iran will not react. But it will be nothing like London during World War II.”

Independent Israeli assessments have taken similar views, and such readings are notably influencing Jerusalem's thinking on a potential strike, according to the Times. Interviews with eight present and previous Israeli defense officials hinted that the country would assess the effect of economic penalties in coming months, though it doubts they will prove adequate; Jerusalem is still seriously weighing an armed strike; and a nuclear-armed Iran is seen as more dangerous than the aftermath of an attack.

“Take every scenario of confrontation and attack by Iran and its proxies and then ask yourself, ‘How would it look if they had a nuclear weapon?’” one high-level government source said. “In nearly every scenario, the situation looks worse” (Ethan Bronner, New York Times, Jan. 26).

In the United States, authorities have detained and formally accused an Iranian technician with purchasing sensitive scientific instruments in violation of trade law, AP reported on Thursday (Associated Press II/USA Today, Jan. 26).