UN Nuclear Agency Issues Stern Warning to Iran

VIENNA, Austria, November 26, 2003 (ENS) - The United Nations nuclear watchdog agency today acknowledged "with the gravest concern," that Iran has in the past enriched uranium and separated plutonium in undeclared facilities, in breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of which it is a signatory.

A resolution adopted by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called on Iran to "urgently" complete all corrective measures and implement its commitment to full disclosure to ensure that nuclear activities and materials are not being diverted to non-peaceful purposes.

While welcoming Tehran’s recent cooperation, the resolution warned that further failures would bring an immediate response. The IAEA called on Iran to suspend all further activitites related to uranium enrichment, including the introduction of nuclear material into its high security uranium enrichment facility near Natanz, and any reprocessing activities.

American and European officials suspect that the Nantanz facility, where Iran plans to install gas centrifuges, is part of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Gas centrifuges at Natanz could be used for the production of low enriched uranium for peaceful purposes such as power production, or highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, depending on the decision of the Iranian government.

Drawing based on a satellite image of the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, Iran. The arrows point to underground structures under construction intended to house gas centrifuges. (Image courtesy Digital Globe/Institute for Science and International Security)

The board’s action followed a report from IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei on Iran’s breaches of the NPT over an extended period of time.

Endorsing Dr. ElBaradei’s call for “a particularly robust verification system,” the board's resolution “notes with satisfaction” Iran’s decision to ratify an Additional Protocol providing for enhanced, unannounced and on-the-spot inspections and “welcomes” its decision to suspend all enrichment related and reprocessing activities.

“We naturally still have much verification work to do before we can provide the assurances expected by the international community, specifically that all nuclear activities in Iran are fully declared and are exclusively for peaceful purposes," ElBaradei told a news conference after the board meeting.

“These assurances could clearly help build confidence and could open the way for a new chapter of cooperation between Iran and the international community. Our success and pace of progress in generating the required assurance will, however, depend on Iran’s full cooperation and transparency. The ball is now in Iran’s court to demonstrate through verification the peaceful nature of its program,” he said.

In its resolution, the board also acknowledged Iran’s reaffirmation of its decision “to provide a full picture of its nuclear activities and…to implement a policy of cooperation and full transparency.”

In his most recent report to the board, the latest since the IAEA first raised concerns publicly in June about Tehran’s nuclear activities, ElBaradei said, “We have no proof to date that Iran’s past undeclared activities have been linked to a nuclear weapons program.”

Ali Akbar Salehi is Iran's Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (Photo courtesy Sharif University of Technology)

Kenneth Brill, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, expressed his satisfaction with the Board of Governors' resolution on Iran's nuclear program.

In a statement delivered to the board, Brill said, "By strongly deploring Iran's ‘past failures and breaches of its obligations to comply with its Safeguards Agreement, the board has expressed the international community's unity in rejecting Iran's policies of denial, delay, and deception, and acknowledged Iran's past behavior as noncompliance."

Kenneth Brill is the U.S. Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (Photo courtesy U.S. State Department)

U.S. officials had hoped that the IAEA would be willing to vote for an immediate referral of the matter to the UN Security Council. But other member states did not support that action, and the board was able to adopt the resolution without a vote, indicating an absence of dissent.

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw welcomed the resolution, which he stressed was "adopted by consensus," calling it "an important step forward in the international community's efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons."

Straw said, "When I visited Tehran on 20 to 21 October with my fellow foreign ministers, Dominique de Villepin [of France] and Joschka Fischer [of Germany], we all urged Iran to meet in full its obligations to the IAEA. The resolution is the result of the intensive diplomatic consultations, which followed this visit. We and our partners look forward to continued cooperation with Iran."

In a U.S. State Department press briefing today, spokesman Richard Boucher addressed questions about Russia's assistance to Iran in building a light water nuclear reactor for power generation at Bushehr. "Our view is, people ought to be careful, continue to be careful about their programs, particularly at this moment, when Iran has not yet implemented all its commitments."

Boucher said, "Peaceful reactor construction should proceed only if Iran was meeting all the requirements of the international community to satisfy the international community that Iran was not conducting weapons programs on the side."

Russian officials made no immediate comment on the IAEA resolution. But Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council Hasan Rowhani said in Tehran that Russia "is quite ready to sign an agreement with Iran on construction of the second unit at the nuclear power plant in Bushehr."

The Board of Governors requested Dr. ElBaradei to submit a comprehensive report on implementation of the resolution by mid-February 2004.