Global Security Newswire

Iran's refusal to provide international inspectors with advance design information about an unfinished heavy-water reactor is "inconsistent" with the nation's reporting requirements, an International Atomic Energy Agency official said Wednesday, while adding that the agency's governing board would probably not be justified in finding Tehran in "noncompliance" with its obligations, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 5).

The United States and other Western powers have voiced concerns that Iran could reprocess spent fuel rods from the site to produce plutonium for a nuclear weapon, but Tehran has insisted the facility would only produce radioactive isotopes for agricultural and medical applications, Reuters reported. Iran has backed off a promise to provide the design information to the agency, and has stated it is adhering to an earlier data-sharing agreement.

Responding to a French inquiry, IAEA legal affairs head Johan Rautenbach said Iran's "refusal to grant access adversely affects the agency's ability to ensure that no [nuclear material] diversion pathways are built into the facility."

Nevertheless, "it is difficult to conclude that providing information in accordance with the earlier formulation in itself constitutes noncompliance," he added in a briefing to the agency's governing board, which wrapped up a four-day meeting yesterday.

Iran's policy "also adversely impacts the effective and efficient implementation of verification activities once construction of the reactor, with large hot cells suitable for (fuel) reprocessing activities, is completed," Rautenbach said. "This is inconsistent with its obligations under its (basic nuclear) safeguard agreement," he said (Mark Heinrich, Reuters I, March 4).

If the governing board determined that Iran's actions constituted a violation of its safeguards agreement, the board would have the option of referring the matter to the U.N. Security Council for possible punitive action.

Iran said in February 2003 that it would abide by an updated provision requiring it to provide specifications on planned nuclear sites "as soon as the decision to construct or to authorize construction has been taken, whichever is earlier." In March 2007, the government announced it would return to an older version of the agreement that allows it to withhold design details for an atomic site until 180 days before that facility receives nuclear material.

"This should be seen in proper context," Rautenbach told the governing board, noting that the provision in question is "broadly phrased" and more than 60 IAEA member nations work under the older version of the clause (Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire, March 6).

Iran argued this week that the agency "strayed from its expected statutory mandate" by making politically influenced assessments regarding the nation's uranium enrichment efforts, United Press International reported. The enrichment process could produce a key nuclear bomb ingredient, but Tehran has said the program would only generate nuclear power plant fuel.

"The agency was founded with a declared goal of promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but we see now that safeguard efforts and world politics have unfortunately outstripped its true objectives," Iran's Press TV quoted Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh as saying (United Press International I, March 5).

Two former White House national security advisers yesterday warned the United States against taking military action in an attempt to curb Iran's nuclear capabilities. Pursuing the military option would "absolutely devastate the historical legacy of the Obama administration," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served during the Carter administration.

Washington should instead pursue direct dialogue with Tehran, Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, an adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"We're on the cusp of an explosion of proliferation and Iran is now the poster child," Scowcroft said. "If Iran is allowed to go forward, in self-defense or for a variety of reasons we could have half-a-dozen countries in the region and 20 or 30 more around the world, doing the same thing, just in case."

Iran's nuclear program primarily poses a proliferation threat, Brzezinski said, suggesting that Tehran is unlikely to make the "suicidal" move of employing nuclear weapons in combat.

Bolstering multilateral efforts to engage Iran could present Tehran with a "monolith that says, 'Don't do this,'" Scowcroft added (Susan Cornwell, Reuters II, March 5).

"We know this is a challenge that we cannot deal with in isolation," said committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.). "It is not just an American problem, and it cannot be just an American solution."

Other countries must demonstrate that if Iran continues to defy IAEA and Security Council demands, the "full weight of the international community will come down on them," Kerry said (United Press International II, March 5).

In Brussels, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington would invite Iran to an international meeting on Afghanistan scheduled for later this month (Cornwell, Reuters II).