Asia

Asia

Iran Remains Defiant With Inspectors, IAEA Says

07 September 2010 01:55 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Three months after the United Nations Security Council enacted its harshest sanctions yet against Iran, global nuclear inspectors reported Monday that the country has dug in its heels, refusing to provide inspectors with information and access they need to determine whether the real purpose of Tehranâ€™s program is to produce weapons, APA reports quoting â€œThe New York Timesâ€.
For several weeks the Obama administration has argued that the sanctions are beginning to bite, cutting off Iranâ€™s access to more foreign capital, halting investment in its energy sector and impeding its ability to send its ships in and out of some foreign ports. While there are strong indications that Iran is beginning to feel pain â€” largely from additional sanctions imposed by the United States and European and Asian nations over the summer â€” the report from the International Atomic Energy Agency indicates that so far, the sanctions have failed to force Iran to comply with longstanding inspectorsâ€™ requests.
The agency protested that Iran had banned two of its most experienced inspectors from the country. The report indicated that for two years, since August 2008, Iran has refused to answer questions â€œabout the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military-related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.â€ The report said it was â€œessential that Iran engage with the agency on these issuesâ€ because evidence can degrade with â€œthe passage of time.â€
Iran argued that it has the right to throw out inspectors it does not trust, and said in case after case that the agency, a unit of the United Nations, had â€œno legal basisâ€ to make its requests.
In recent weeks, top officials in the Obama administration have said they believe it would take Iran at least a year to convert its stockpiles to nuclear weapons, giving the United States, Israel and others considerable time to react to any effort at a â€œbreakout,â€ a race for a bomb.
That estimate, officials acknowledge, assumes that Iran does not have any hidden production facilities. Little work has taken place at one such facility, near Qum, since it was revealed last year, the I.A.E.A. report indicated. But Iran is still refusing to lift the veil on the origins of that new enrichment plant, declining to give inspectors the design plans that they have demanded to understand its true purpose.
â€œThe information requested,â€ the report said, â€œis essential.â€
In areas where inspectors have been allowed access, the report indicates slow but steady progress in the production of low-enriched uranium. Inspectors said that Iran has now produced 2,803 kilograms, or 6,108 pounds, of low-enriched uranium at it main facility at Natanz. That represents an increase of 15 percent in the countryâ€™s stockpile over the past three months. With further conversion, that is enough to produce roughly two weapons.
The new report cited case after case of Iranâ€™s continuing defiance in providing information, material and access to inspectors as well as its failure to halt its increasingly aggressive program to enrich uranium, which can fuel both reactors and weapons.
The report also faulted Iranâ€™s refusal to provide details of its projects to develop a plant for the production of heavy water, as well as a new reactor. Iran holds that it had renounced any legal obligation to give the agency such nuclear details.
In surprisingly blunt language, the report also strongly criticized Iranâ€™s barring in June of two agency inspectors from entering Iran. The Iranian government said it did so because of their connection to â€œfalse and wrong statements.â€
But the agency in its report insisted that inspectors had done no wrong and rejected the criticism.
â€œThe agency,â€ it said, â€œhas full confidence in the professionalism and impartiality of the inspectors concerned.â€
The report also criticized a previous shutting out of inspectors that Iran engineered in early 2007, saying it needs â€œinspectors with experience in Iranâ€™s nuclear fuel cycle and facilities.â€ The repeated bars to inquiries, the report charged, â€œhampers the inspection process.â€
In an interview, a European diplomat called the reportâ€™s language about the banning of the inspectors â€œquite strong.â€ Iranâ€™s actions, he added on the condition of anonymity, citing the usual diplomatic rules, are slowly blinding the agency and undermining its ability to conduct inspections with the kind of freedom it needs to dig beneath official denials and disavowals.
The report, in its conclusion, declared that Tehran â€œhas not provided the necessary cooperation to permit the agency to confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.â€ And as many reports have done in the past, it called on Iran to increase its cooperation.