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Diplomats: Iran Agrees to More IAEA Overview

24 April 2010 03:44 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Iran has agreed to give the United Nation’s nuclear monitoring agency greater inspection and monitoring rights to a sensitive site where it is enriching uranium to higher levels, diplomats said Friday, APA reports quoting â€œThe Wall Street Journalâ€.
The moveâ€”indirectly confirmed by a senior Iranian envoy, the Associated press reportedâ€”comes as Tehran mounts a diplomatic offensive meant to stave off new U.N. sanctions for its defiance of Security Council demands that it curb nuclear activities that could be used to make weapons.
Iran’s president is in Africa this week to build alliances to evade stronger U.N. sanctions, ease Iran’s international isolation and strengthen its economy. Landing in Uganda Friday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will discuss his country’s nuclear program with President Yoweri Museveni. Uganda hasn’t yet ruled out the possibility it could vote for sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, said a spokesman for the Ugandan president.
Mr. Ahmadinejad is expected to personally make his case after a two-day trip to Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe urged him to remain resolute in defiance of the West.
Iran began enriching uranium to near 20% two months ago and says it will be turned into fuel rods for research reactors that manufacture medical isotopes for cancer patients. It says it was forced to take this step because Western nations refused to meet it half way on a moribund plan that would have supplied the rods from abroad.
The International Atomic Energy Agency had pushed in vain for greater access to the enrichment operation since the start of the project, seeking to realign monitoring cameras already set up to oversee Iran’s long-standing enrichment plant that is churning out much-lower-level uranium. It has also been asking for more frequent inspections, the diplomats said.
They said Iran agreed in principle about 10 days ago to someâ€”but not allâ€”of the oversight the IAEA had asked for. "They have not agreed to the full measures sought by the agency but enough so that the agency would be happy’’ after being stonewalled for two months, said one of three diplomats.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the chief Iranian envoy to the IAEA, indirectly confirmed agreement, saying the two sides had "constructive talks" on the issue.
This isn’t the first time Iran has agreed to implement confidence-building measures. In 2003, Iran voluntarily suspended enrichment activities and offered to provide the IAEA with additional information about its nuclear facilities as a confidence-building measure. By 2007 Iran canceled the concessions.
The tentative agreement, if implemented, shows the difficulties the IAEA faces in monitoring Iran’s compliance with its international obligations in the nuclear field. Iran reserves the right to refuse monitoring that isn’t specifically required under international agreements that are often decades-old, such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons that Iran signed in 1968.
Iran last year rejected a U.N.-backed plan that offered nuclear fuel rods in exchange for Iran’s stock of lower-level enriched uranium. That swap would have curbed Tehran’s capacity to make a nuclear bomb.
Six world powersâ€”the five permanent Security Council members plus Germanyâ€”endorsed the confidence-building proposal. Backed by the IAEA, the deal foresaw shipping 2,420 pounds (1,100 kilograms) of low-enriched uranium from Iran to Russia to be enriched to 20%, then to France for processing into fuel rods for the research reactor that makes nuclear isotopes needed for medical purposes.
Beyond meeting Iran’s needs, the U.S. and its allies saw the proposal as delaying Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon by stripping it of much of the enriched uranium it would need for such a project. Tehran denies seeking such arms, insisting it is enriching only for an envisaged network of power-generating nuclear reactors.
Though Iran initially rejected the proposal, its leaders have tried to keep the offer on the table, proposing variations without accepting the Vienna-based IAEA’s terms. The main stumbling block has been Tehran’s refusal to ship the bulk of its low-enriched uranium abroadâ€”a condition insisted upon by the West as key to slowing Iran’s accumulation of enriched uranium and thereby any bomb-making capacities.
In the meantime, Iran has pushed ahead with further enriching uranium to 20% on its own, announcing this week that it has produced five kilograms (11 pounds) of the material, though it isn’t clear if it is able to take the next step of turning them into fuel rods for the reactor.
Any success in enriching up to that level brings Iran closer to quickly being able to make weapons-grade uranium that serves as the core of nuclear warheads.
The Iranian concession comes just before the weekend visit of Iran’s foreign minister to Austria on the first stop of an international campaign aimed at weakening a U.S.-backed push for new U.N. sanctions.
Manouchehr Mottaki will meet his Austrian counterpart, Michael Spindelegger, on Sunday, Austria’s Foreign Ministry said.
Austria is a nonpermanent member of the U.N. Security Council, which is preparing to consider a fourth round of sanctions on Tehran for its nuclear defiance.
Before his trip, Mr. Mottaki said Iran wants to talk with all council members except the U.S about the nuclear fuel swap deal. Iranian delegations, he said, will be pushing for agreement on the proposal in visits to veto-wielding permanent council members China and Russia and rotating members, including Uganda, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived Friday.
For months, Russia and China have blocked attempts by the U.S., Britain and Franceâ€”the three other permanent Security Council membersâ€”to introduce new sanctions.
Russia has recently expressed a readiness to support "smart" sanctions that don’t target the Iranian people. China also appears willing but is insisting on further watering down present drafts submitted by the West.
Only permanent council members could veto proposed sanctions, but strong opposition by nonpermanent members could strengthen Iran’s case.
Brazil and Turkey, also serving two-year terms on the Security Council, already have indicated a reluctance to support new sanctions, and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is due in Tehran on May 15.
One of the diplomats said Mr. Mottaki would also be meeting IAEA chief Yukiya Amano but added the Iranian was bringing nothing new to the table that could unlock the impasse on the fuel swap.