International concern about Iran’s suspect nuclear projects deepened last night when Tehran barred the International Atomic Energy Agency’s nuclear inspectors.
It told the IAEA that its inspectors could not return to resume their search for evidence for at least six weeks.
Tehran’s allies at the IAEA board meeting in Vienna yesterday blocked a tough resolution on Iran supported by the US and Europe.
The sudden intensification of the crisis appeared to pave the way for a showdown by the next IAEA board meeting in June.
”Iran has raised the ante,” said a diplomat following the meeting. ”There’s some consternation.”
The Americans and the Europeans, despite deep differences over how to respond to the Iranians, agreed a compromise formula on Wednesday which demands ”immediate”, ”proactive” and ”urgent” cooperation from Tehran on the nuclear inspections.
Iran’s decision to cancel the inspections for a month flies in the face of such demands. The US-European compromise wording, however, has run up against stiff resistance from the Russians and the 13 of the 35 board members from the Non-Aligned Movement.
Meetings were continuing behind closed doors late last night and the board is to resume this morning, a highly unusual scenario.
Mohammed ElBaradei, the IAEA chief, is to travel to Washington tomorrow to discuss with President George Bush how to tackle the Iranian issue and the black market in nuclear technology recently revealed to be centred in Pakistan.
It remained unclear how the developing drama in Vienna would affect Dr ElBaradei’s trip to Washington. Diplomats said the Iranian postponement of the UN inspections was an attempt to ”put pressure” on the IAEA and an example of Iranian ”posturing”.
Europe and the US have been seeking to get the Iranians to dismantle their uranium enrichment programmes since Iran was found last year to have been operating a secret enrichment project for 18 years, the key to obtaining nuclear bomb-grade material.
The US-European compromise agreed on Wednesday put off until June a decision on how to respond to Iran’s breaches of its international nuclear commitments.
The resolution ”deplores” Iranian failures to report fully its nuclear activities to the IAEA and singles out the Iranian military for the first time as being heavily involved in Iran’s nuclear programmes.
The Iranians reacted furiously earlier this week to a tougher-than-expected response to the long-running nuclear row.
Diplomats characterised the furious response as predictable brinkmanship. But the decision to delay UN inspections was seen as much more serious. – Guardian Unlimited Â