The George W Bush administration may like to see Iran face sanctions for its nuclear aspirations, but the political mood at the United Nations suggests that such punishment is not what the world community is ready for.
‘We don’t think it will be helpful to bring the issue to the Security Council,†Chinese ambassador to the UN, Wang Guangya, told reporters recently, a day after Iran broke the seals on uranium enrichment equipment at its nuclear plant in Isfahan.
Guangya, whose country holds a permanent veto-wielding seat on the 15-member Security Council, said he supported ongoing efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European Union troika (Britain, France and Germany) to find a solution based on dialogue with Iran.
Recently, the three EU nations had warned Iran that they would seek Security Council-sponsored sanctions if Tehran did not reverse its decision to open the uranium reprocessing facilities after an eight-month hiatus. Despite this threat, Iran removed the UN seals at a time when the Vienna-based IAEA Board of Governors was still discussing what to do next.
Enriched material can be used for peaceful purposes such as generating electricity, as well as for making nuclear bombs. Iran has consistently denied that it wants to make nuclear weapons and insists that its nuclear activities are in accord with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. However, the United States and some European nations continue to harbour suspicions about Tehran’s intentions.
In an attempt to resolve the issue through dialogue, Iran had suspended its uranium enrichment programme and allowed tough IAEA inspections in November 2003. It has since been involved in negotiations with Britain, Germany and France.
The IAEA says Iran removed all its seals at the uranium plant after the agency installed its inspection system, but that does not imply an ‘endorsement of the resumption of uranium enrichment and conversionâ€.
Like the Chinese ambassador, both UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the IAEA director, Mohamed ElBara-dei, urged restraint and warned against attempts to escalate tensions.
Annan told reporters in New York: ‘I believe the best way to break this impasse is to continue the discussions [of] the EU-3 with the Iranians at the table.â€
Annan said he was in touch with all the parties concerned, including newly-elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
ElBaradei observed that any attempt to escalate the situation would be a ‘lose-lose situationâ€. ‘I hope that Iran will continue to negotiate rather than take unilateral action, go back to the negotiating table with a counter-proposal and let’s try to see the way forward,†he said.
Ahmadinejad has said he is ready for more talks and will come up with new proposals. ‘I have new initiatives and proposals, which I will present after my government takes office,†he told Annan over the telephone, according to ISNA, an Iranian media outlet.
Bush welcomed Ahmadinejad’s statement, but reiterated that he was ‘very deeply suspicious†of Tehran’s nuclear intentions. He said if the situation was not resolved through negotiation, Washington would work with the Europeans ‘in terms of what consequences there may be, and certainly the UN is a potential consequence.â€
Observers say securing a majority on the 35-nation board of the IAEA to refer Iran to the Security Council would not be easy for the US and the EU, since a majority of members of the board belong to the Non-Aligned Movement, which appears to have no desire to endorse such a move.
‘This may cause serious international problems,†said Gennady Yevstafyev, senior counsel at the Centre for Political Research in Moscow. ‘It is hard to imagine that all the members of the Security Council will elaborate a common approach to this problem. Consequently, they will fail to adopt any resolution on the matter,†he predicted. — IPS
Iranian arms seized at Iraqi border
The British government on Wed-nesday described as ‘unacceptable” the smuggling of arms from Iran into Iraq after revealing that a consignment was intercepted recently at the border between the two countries, writes Ewen MacAskill.
The British embassy in Tehran raised the issue at a meeting with the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Officials relayed the government’s concern and pressed Iran to acknowledge that there is a problem that should be dealt with. Iran has repeatedly denied any involvement, in the insurgency or in party politics in Iraq.
A senior British official on Wednesday said a group crossing from Iran was intercepted near Maysan, which is in the British-controlled sector of Iraq. Iraqi security forces opened fire and the smugglers fled back to Iran, leaving behind their cache of timers, detonators and other bomb-making equipment.
The official said it had the ‘fingerprints” of either the Iranian Revolutionary Guard or the Lebanese-based Hizbollah. —