Thursday, 10 September 2009
The heated debate about Iran’s nuclear program as the critical month draws in come to occupy the international agenda again as mutual allegations and expressions of suspicion by Israel and Iran mount following the latest report by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on August 28.
The report had acknowledged the permission Iran gave IAEA to monitor its Natanz site and to reach another heavy water-reactor site but at the same time claimed that Iran still prevented inquiries into the allegations that Iran is about to produce nuclear weapon. While IAEA chief El-Baradei pointed to Iran’s failure to sign the IAEA protocol that would allow further inspections of the sites beyond the ones Iran declared, he also said that “the threat from Iran has been hyped in many ways”. Concerning Iran’s objection to signing the protocol Iranian envoy to IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, rejected the claim that Iran is bound to implement the protocol, because 80 other countries declined to sign it. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad declared once more that Iran will not terminate its uranium enrichment program. The US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, in the meantime, while emphasizing that the U.S. still accords significance to diplomacy and political economic pressures as prioritized means to bring Iran into heel also advised Arab states to “strengthen their security capabilities”.
The EU, under Swedish Presidency currently, has been silent on the IAEA report and the debate surmounting afterwards, though French president and German Chancellor had announced their approval of further sanctions before already, and Spanish foreign minister said in his visit to Israel yesterday that Iranian proposals to renew nuclear talks are inadequate and agreed that harsher sanctions on Iran are necessary.
Amidst ongoing debate the struggle between Iran and Israel to dominate over what ‘proper’ interpretation of the IAEA report should be and which course of action should be followed on the issue have also surfaced. Questioning the credibility of IAEA Israeli Foreign Ministry saw the report as “one of the last reports submitted by the outgoing director-general, Dr. Mohammed El-Baradei, and it is notable for the findings omitted from it.” Israel interpreted the report as calling for more punitive sanctions on Iran. Israeli Prime Minister is reported to have been to Russia a few days ago trying to persuade Moscow reverse the Russian decision to sell “game changing” S-300 missiles to Iran. Israeli lobbies in the U.S. have expressed their plans to put pressure on Obama administration for the ‘crippling sanctions’ promised against Iran. US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman has said that he will go forward with his Iran legislation that was prepared in last May and that will sanction companies selling Iran refined petroleum. Iran, in contrast, reinstated its faith in IAEA as “‘sole pertinent international technical organization” scrutinizing nuclear activities closely and found the report positive.
Iran has presented an updated nuclear package to the permanent members of UN Security Council and Germany. The United States’ chief envoy to IAEA, Glyn Davies, interpreted the report in IAEA’s 35-member Board of Governors meeting as Tehran being “either very near to or already in possession of enough low-enriched uranium to produce one nuclear weapon” should it wish to do so. The members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), in contrast, opined that Iranian issue should be solved on “technical and legal grounds” under the IAEA mandate.
Iran had been given time until the end of September to demonstrate good faith and bring its nuclear enrichment program into a halt in return for enhanced trade incentives. Otherwise, Iran, it had been declared, would be subjected to stronger sanctions. It is expected that the Iranian issue will be major issue in the upcoming days. It will come under focus first in G-20 meeting on September 24-25 and then in UN General Assembly and UN National Security Council meetings on nuclear proliferation.
By Omer Aslan (JTW)
