The International Atomic Energy Agency released a report today saying that it cannot conclude that Iran's nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes only, as Tehran insists, unless Iran provides more information about its past activities, an agency official said.
The report was sent to the 35 nations that make up the agency's board of governors, who are to discuss the looming showdown over Iran at a meeting next week in Moscow. On Feb. 4, the board voted to refer Iran's case to the United Nations Security Council, but it extended a grace period of a month to allow for diplomatic efforts.
In the report, the agency's director, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, wrote that "it is regrettable and a matter of concern that the uncertainties related to the scope and nature of Iran's nuclear program have not been clarified after three years of intensive agency verification."
The report did not conclude that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, but rather that the agency cannot be sure that nothing is being hidden unless Tehran adopts an attitude of "active cooperation," the agency official said.
Iran's cooperation so far has been "very limited," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the report publicly.
Iran acknowledged in 2003 that it had deceived international inspectors for many years, but it said that its program was now meant solely to develop reactors to meet its needs for electricity. The United States, and more recently its European allies, have argued that Security Council action is needed to block Iran from the road to nuclear weapons.
While the United States had emphasized the need to stop the program before Iran's scientists master the techniques of nuclear enrichment, Dr. ElBaradei and agency officials have focused in recent discussions on the need for "transparency" in clearing up unanswered questions from the period of violations.
They have noted that under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Iran has the right to conduct research and even to enrich uranium, although Dr. ElBaradei has called on Tehran to resume its research moratorium as a confidence-building measure as the international community considers its case.
The report released today also stressed that theme, saying that to dispel doubts about the program Iran needed to provide a level of cooperation "that extends beyond the formal legal requirements" of its agreement with the agency.
Otherwise, it said, "the agency's ability to reconstruct the history of Iran's past program and verify the correctness and completeness of the statements made by Iran, particularly with regard to its centrifuge (nuclear fuel) enrichment program, will be limited, and questions about the past and current direction of Iran's nuclear program will continue to be raised."
The agency official said that full cooperation would include restoring an agreement that gave inspectors the right to conduct unscheduled visits and actively working to make documents and scientists available.
"They should be volunteering access to the scientists who worked on these things 10, 15 years ago," the official said.
In particular, the International Atomic Energy Agency needs more information about the fate of "dual use" equipment purchased long ago, including aluminum tubes that could have been used in a nuclear centrifuge for enriching uranium or for other industrial uses, the official said. "They have to show that they went to this particular refinery or aircraft repair shop."
Another focus of interest is the "Green Salt Project," a secretive entity described in an agency report earlier this month that involved uranium processing, high explosives and a missile warhead design.
Iran replied last week to the I.A.E.A.'s inquiries by saying that the Green Salt allegations "are based on false and fabricated documents," the agency official said.
The new report released today also comes as negotiations are scheduled to continue over a Russian proposal that many view as the last chance to head off an international showdown over the Iranian program.
On Sunday, Russian and Iranian officials announced an agreement "in principle on the plan," which would involve shipping uranium from Iran to Russia for enrichment in a jointly owned plant, thereby providing Tehran without giving it the means of turning the fuel into weapons.
Today, officials of both countries said the talks would continue, but they still disagreed over a basic precondition. Russia wants Iran to renounce the research work on enrichment that it recently resumed before a deal is reached, but Iranian officials insist on their right to conduct exactly such research, along with its right to conduct large-scale enrichment at some future date.
"What Iran wants added to this proposal to complete it is that eventually Iran's right to enrich uranium on its soil is accepted," Hossein Entezami, a spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told reporters in Tehran today, news agencies reported.
Mr. Entezami said that Iran was ready "to expand its cooperation with I.A.E.A.," including allowing snap inspections that go beyond its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty but only if the agency recognizes "our right to nuclear technology, including research and development."
And in Tokyo, Iran's foreign minister, Manucher Mottaki, said after a meeting with Japanese diplomats that Tehran had no intention of suspending the nuclear research it began earlier this month.
"What we are doing is research at the laboratory level and it is impossible to stop it, and that's Iran's right," Mr. Mottaki was quoted by saying by a Japanese official who briefed reporters.
Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said in Moscow today that talks over the weekend had produced progress on the technical aspects of the joint enrichment plan. "We now have a better idea of how the idea can be implemented in practice," he said, according to the state-run Novosti news agency.
But Mr. Lavrov also emphasized that the Russian proposal "is not isolated" and would require approval by "all the members" of the atomic agency's board of directors.
The United States, along with Europe and China, have endorsed the Russian proposal, but it is not willing to allow Iran to conduct research that would give it the ability to manufacture weapons at a later date.
The agreement in principle reached over the weekend was announced after a meeting between Sergei V. Kiriyenko, the Russian nuclear chief, and Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization in Bushehr, where the Russians built Iran's first nuclear power plant.
"We held talks with the Russian side on Russia's proposal yesterday and today," said Mr. Aghazadeh, the ISNA student news agency reported. "The talks saw good progress."
Mr. Kiriyenko said the two countries "have almost no organizational, technical or financial problems" over the proposal. But he said, "It is just an element of a complex approach, and more work is needed in the area," ISNA reported.
In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan sounded a note of caution over the announcement. "We'll have to see what the details of any agreement are," he said. "Given their history, you can understand why we remain skeptical." |
Iran said Monday it is currently installing 3,000 centrifuges, effectively confirming that its nuclear programme is running behind schedule as these devices for uranium enrichment were to have been in place by the end of last year. We are moving toward the production of nuclear fuel, which requires 3,000 centrifuges and more than this figure, government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham told a news conference. This programme is being carried out and moving toward completion.
China on Friday urged Iran to give a "serious response" to a U.N. Security Council resolution that imposed sanctions on Tehran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment.
When the director of the