Global Security Newswire

Top U.N. nuclear official Mohamed ElBaradei is optimistic that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama could improve international efforts to resolve nuclear crises in Iran and North Korea, a key ElBaradei adviser said recently (see GSN, Dec. 8).

ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has often backed more diplomatic engagement with Tehran and Pyongyang, a policy not always supported by U.S. President George W. Bush. The United States has refused to hold one-on-one talks with either nation, preferring to encourage multilateral negotiations.

Obama, however, has repeatedly expressed a willingness to have direct meetings with U.S. adversaries, an approach praised by ElBaradei.

"There is no other way to solve these critical policy issues like North Korea, or Iran, or Syria, that are somehow embedded into a political discussion," said Vilmos Cserveny, head of ElBaradei's external relations and policy coordination office.

ElBaradei is entering his final year as IAEA director general, meaning that many, if not all, of the major nuclear proliferation crises are unlikely to be resolved under his watch, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.

"There will be enough work for the next director general," Cserveny said (Albert Otti, Deutsche Presse-

Agentur/Earth Times, Dec. 22).