South Africa should use its position on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board to persuade Iran to stop its nuclear programme, the United States ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, said on Wednesday.
”I hope South Africa will, rather than taking position in the middle … use its moral high ground to help in our effort to drive Iranian leadership in a different direction,” Schulte told South African journalists via videophone from Vienna.
South Africa has a vote on the 35-member IAEA board, which meets on February 2 to discuss the possible referral of Iran to the United Nations Security Council.
”We have to do so because the IAEA statute requires it,” said Schulte. ”It would be a clear signal to Iran that the international community would not accept its continued steps forward to get the know-how to create a nuclear bomb and because the UN Security Council could bring new tools to bear.
”They [Iran] have been sending emissaries all over the place to explain what they are doing is a peaceful programme and it is just research. It is not. They are trying to drive wedges and prevent a united international front.”
Enough board members of the IAEA are in favour of reporting Iran to the Security Council. However, a clear message could be send to Tehran if as many countries as possible voted in favour of the referral.
”Everyone wants a political settlement, everyone wants a diplomatic solution, but for that to be successful, the political leadership needs to come to the conclusion that they need to give up their nuclear ambitions,” said Schulte.
”There is a tendency to think if you go to the Security Council, you are going to war. No one is talking war, no one is talking military options. It is simply taking the diplomacy to a new level,” he added.
IAEA engagement with Iran would not stop with a referral to the UN Security Council.
The South African government voiced its belief that there was no alternative to continuing dialogue and negotiations to reach a long-term agreement after a meeting last week between Iran’s acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mehdi Mostafavi, and South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aziz Pahad.
”I hope Iran and South Africa can take the process forward within the framework of the IAEA,” Mostafavi said after the meeting. He also asked South Africa to clarify Iran’s position within the Non-Aligned Movement. — Sapa