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Iran poised to end nuclear activity freeze
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-12 13:39
The standoff between Iran and Europe escalated into a showdown Wednesday,
with Tehran poised formally to end its freeze of activities that can be part of
the process of making nuclear weapons — a move that could lead to action by the
U.N. Security Council.
Reached by telephone, senior
Iranian envoy Sirous Nasseri said that he had flown just hours earlier to Vienna with a
letter from his government to the International Atomic Energy agency, the U.N.
nuclear watchdog charged with overseeing Tehran's suspension of uranium
enrichment and related activities.
Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani speaks during an International Conference on Nuclear Technology
and Sustainable Development in Tehran March 6, 2005. Iran is expected to
notify the United Nations within days that it is resuming sensitive
nuclear work, almost certainly killing off Tehran's crucial talks with the
European Union, a European diplomat said on May 11, 2005.
[Reuters] | Nasseri declined to discuss the contents of the letter. But diplomats close
to the IAEA said they expected it contained formal notification that Iran was
resuming conversion of uranium ore as part of a process whose end result is
uranium hexafluoride — a substance that then can be used to produce
weapons-grade uranium.
One of the diplomats — who like his colleagues spoke on condition of
anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue — said he expected Nasseri to
present his letter Thursday.
Any such formal notification of resumption of conversion will torpedo Iran's
talks with France, Germany and Britain. Those talks are intended to lessen
suspicions about Tehran's ultimate nuclear aims. The United States says Iran
wants to make the bomb, but Iran insists it is interested in the atom only as a
source of energy.
Washington has long maintained that Iran's nuclear program — kept secret for
nearly two decades until revealed by a dissident group in 2002 — is meant to
make weapons, and as such, Tehran's nuclear dossier belongs in the hands of the
Security Council. But because of strong resistance at previous IAEA board
meetings, it reluctantly embraced the European diplomatic efforts.
The on-off talks, which began last year, have failed from the beginning to
find common ground on the European insistence that Iran scrap — or at last agree
to a long-term suspension of — uranium enrichment and related activities, and
Tehran's insistence that any freeze was voluntary and short-lived. The last
formal round ended inconclusively April 29.
The Europeans appeared braced for the inevitable. Diplomats on Wednesday said
the three nations had begun informal contacts with the IAEA about convening a
special session of its 35-nation board should the Iranians tell the agency they
were ready to break IAEA seals on conversion equipment in the central city of
Isfahan.
Such a session could be called within days of formal notification by Iran of
plans to resume conversion. The diplomats said a likely scenario would see board
nations giving Iran a two- to three-week deadline to change its mind. If it
refused, sentiment at the next board meeting — probably in June — would be
strong to declare Tehran in violation of its agreements to suspend enrichment
while negotiating in good faith with the Europeans. In that case, the board
might refer the case to the U.N. Security Council.
One senior Western diplomat said the three European nations also were
consulting with the United States on a common course of action. A senior U.S.
official in Washington said earlier that the Bush administration was conferring
closely with the allies and that all the governments were determined there would
be consequences for Iran if it ends the moratorium.
While the Europeans had been key in previous board opposition to referring
Iran to the Security Council, senior officials in several European capitals
suggested any resumption of reprocessing would leave them no choice but to
support such a move.
"I think the reaction of the ... Europeans is going to be very tough if
conversion resumes," said one. "It's not possible to get the Europeans scared."
Suggesting that European patience had run out with Iran's negotiating
tactics, another said: "The game of poker is over." Both spoke on condition of
anonymity.
A third official said the three European nations had delivered a strongly
worded letter to the Iranian government formally warning it against resuming any
enrichment-related activity.
In another sign that conversion was about to start again, Iranian Vice
President Gholamreza Aghazadeh said Tuesday that reprocessing could resume as
soon as Thursday. He said the move is a message to Europeans that Iran can't
continue offering unilateral concessions against nothing from
Europe.
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