USA TODAY: The International Atomic Energy Agency plans to warn Iran to suspend new efforts to make nuclear fuel and resume talks with Europeans or face possible punishment, two European diplomats said Monday. European nations and the United States called for an emergency meeting today of the board of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency in anticipation that Iran would carry out its threats to resume a uranium program. USA TODAY
By Barbara Slavin
The International Atomic Energy Agency plans to warn Iran to suspend new efforts to make nuclear fuel and resume talks with Europeans or face possible punishment, two European diplomats said Monday.
European nations and the United States called for an emergency meeting today of the board of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency in anticipation that Iran would carry out its threats to resume a uranium program. Monday, Iran introduced raw uranium into a facility at Isfahan but did not break seals installed there by the agency. That would be the next step to convert the uranium into uranium hexafluoride gas, which can be enriched into fuel for power plants or bombs.
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli and French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Iran had violated an agreement with Germany, France and Britain to suspend such activities.
The nuclear agency board, which can refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions, would not do so immediately, according to the two European diplomats in Washington. The diplomats, who were briefed by their governments, asked not to be named because the board has not yet met. European nations and their allies have a majority on the 35-member board.
Iran may have acted in part for a domestic audience a hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, took office Saturday and as a negotiating tactic.
Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of State for non-proliferation, accused Iran of escalating tensions through “salami slicing.”
“They’re testing the international community,” he said. “If they get a strong reaction, they can stop; if not, they can continue salami slicing.”
Iran denies that it intends to make nuclear bombs. But it hid much of its nuclear program for two decades, which raises questions about its intentions.
Iran acted after rejecting a U.S.-backed European offer to provide fuel for nuclear plants and other cooperation in return for giving up its fuel program.
Iran’s ambassador to the U.N., Mohammed Javad Zarif, said that proposal was “unacceptable.”
The 34-page proposal, a copy of which was provided by Zarif, demands that Iran let U.N. inspectors “visit any site or interview any person they deem relevant to their monitoring of nuclear activity in Iran.” That is similar to the access inspectors had in Iraq. In return, the proposal says Iran “should have sustained access to nuclear fuel” for power plants and greater cooperation in fields ranging from air safety to seismology.
The proposal also says Iran must respect human rights and take new measures to prevent terrorism. The United States accuses Iran of violating human rights and supporting terrorist groups.
