Tuesday, 13 June 2006LONDON, June 13 (IranMania) - The United States stepped up pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear program as the UN atomic watchdog warned questions remained over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, AFP reported.
UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei opened the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency saying a more than three-year IAEA probe had failed to resolve "verification issues" over Iran's nuclear work.
"I would continue to urge Iran to provide the cooperation needed to resolve these issues," ElBaradei said.
Despite being unable to certify Iran is not seeking nuclear arms, ElBaradei said he remained "convinced that the way forward lies through dialogue and mutual accomodation among all concerned parties."
Gregory Schulte, the US ambassador to the IAEA, pressed Iran to honor international requests to suspend uranium enrichment, which can make fuel for nuclear power reactors or the raw material for atom bombs.
Tehran should "take advantage of the enormous diplomatic opportunity that lays in front of the Islamic Republic," he said.
Six world powers, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, last week offered Iran a package of incentives in return for reining in its program.
Suspending uranium enrichment was the pre-condition for talks on the benefits package.
The powers threatened UN sanctions if Tehran fails to comply.
But Iran seemed resolute.
"Iran has achieved nuclear fuel technology. This is our absolute right, and we will not negotiate our absolute right with anyone," Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters in Tehran.
Iran says it has a mandate to enrich uranium under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as it only wants to use it to make fuel for power generation.
A vigorous debate on Iran but no resolution is expected at this week's IAEA meeting of its 35-nation board of governors, with the Iranian issue expected to come up Wednesday or Thursday.
In London, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert backed efforts to end the stand-off with Iran.
"This is not an Israeli problem. It's a problem of every nation in the world," the prime minister said after talks with his British counterpart Tony Blair in London.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal arrived in Tehran on Monday, saying he hoped for a speedy resolution to the crisis.
But the United States faced an 11th hour hurdle in its efforts to ramp up pressure on Tehran.
Diplomats said Washington was fighting to prevent non-aligned states on the IAEA board from issuing a statement supporting Iran's right to uranium enrichment.
Washington feared this would ease up the carefully orchestrated pressure on the Iranians, they said.
A non-aligned diplomat said the bloc was planning a statement that would renew a message first issued May 30 in Malaysia, when the the Non Aligned Movement affirmed the right to atomic energy and opposed any attack on nuclear facilities.
"The Americans are not happy with that statement and told that to the NAM members," the diplomat said.
The United States wanted the bloc, which numbers some 16 mostly developing nations on the IAEA board, to stick to a February IAEA resolution calling on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment.
"The US point of view is that the Iranians should not be allowed to feel relaxed about enrichment, that the goal is to keep the pressure on them," the diplomat said.
A senior US State Department official said Washington did not want Tehran to press on with its enrichment activites while drawing out negotiations with the rest of the world.
With Iran being called on to answer the benefits offer within weeks, "we don't want the Iranian authorities to be considering this indefinitely," a senior US State Department official said.
"We don't want to be back into a situation we've seen before where they say they are prepared to negotiate but at the same time they just continue with their nuclear activities," the official said.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006 - T®2005 IranMania.com
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Tuesday, 13 June 2006
Iran
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