On another topic, the international politics of Iran and nuclear weapons is heating up again.
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The New York Times
March 4, 2008
Nuclear Watchdog Presses Iran on Weapon Reports
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that intelligence reports that Iran secretly researched how to make nuclear weapons were of “serious concern,” adding that his agency was determined to fully investigate the claims.
“Iran continues to maintain that these alleged weaponization studies related to conventional weapons only or are fabricated,” said the director, Mohamed ElBaradei, in a speech to the agency’s 35-country policy-making body in Vienna, as the United Nations Security Council prepared to vote on a new round of sanctions against Iran on Monday in New York. “However a full-fledged examination of this issue has yet to take place.”
In a thinly veiled criticism of Iran, he added, “I urge Iran to be as active and cooperative as possible in working with the agency to clarify this matter of serious concern.”
Last Monday, Olli Heinonen, the agency’s senior inspector, gave the governing body a two-hour briefing showing documents, sketches and even a video that appeared to have come from Iran’s own military laboratories. Mr. Heinonen said they showed work “not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon,” according to notes taken by diplomats.
Iran has rejected all suggestions that it was studying how to make nuclear weapons, calling the intelligence data fabricated and a pending Security Council resolution irresponsible, claims its envoy to the agency repeated on Monday.
“These allegations from these studies are forged and fabricated,” Iran’s I.A.E.A. ambassador, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told reporters in Vienna. “Any action by the Security Council is an arrow aiming at the heart of the I.A.E.A.”
He said that the documents appeared to be fakes because the Farsi text was badly written. He also said that Iran would work with the agency to prove they are forgeries.
France, Britain and Germany were preparing a draft resolution critical of Iran that could be adopted by the agency’s policy-making body later this week. The United States, Canada, Australia and Japan already have indicated privately they would support such a move.
The resolution would be intended to support a new Security Council resolution expected to be passed in New York on Monday. It would be the first time the I.A.E.A.’s policy-making board passed such a resolution on Iran since it sent Iran’s file to the Security Council for review two years ago.
The United States, which in the past has criticized Dr. ElBaradei for not being tough enough on Iran, expressed support for his approach. “Despite some progress in addressing past issues, troubling questions remain about Iranian activities that strongly suggest a clandestine weapons-related program,” Gregory L. Schulte, the American envoy to the I.A.E.A., told reporters in Vienna. He added, “Between the indications of weapons work, which would constitute a violation of Iran’s treaty obligations and Iran’s blatant violations of Security Council resolutions, there is strong reason for Iran’s file to remain open both in New York and in Vienna.”
On a positive note, Dr. ElBaradei said that his agency’s inspectors had not seen any use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged weaponization studies, and called it “obviously encouraging” that Iran had provided enough information recently to resolve all other outstanding issues on its past suspicious activities and allowed some inspections of its nuclear research sites.
nytimes.com |
