PARIS - Far from delivering on a promised set of new proposals to end the
standoff over Iran's nuclear program, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has raised
the stakes.
In a much-anticipated speech to the UN General Assembly at the weekend,
Ahmadinejad said that Iran's program was entirely legal, and he attacked what
he called a "nuclear apartheid" that permitted some countries to enrich fuel,
but not others.
For weeks, Iran had hinted that it would come up with a solution to the growing
opposition to its nuclear program, which the US, in particular, believes is
aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran says that its activities are solely
for civilian use.
The board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was due
to begin meeting on Monday in Vienna, where the US and European Union may now
ask the 35-member board to refer the Iran issue to the United Nations Security
Council, where Iran could face sanctions. The Vienna meeting could take several
days to reach a conclusion.
IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei on Monday said that the "ball is very much in
Iran's court on this issue - we need a number of additional transparency
measures, including access to certain sites and access to certain individuals."
ElBaradei added that the issue was "going through a period of confrontation and
political brinkmanship".
Diplomats Asia Times Online spoke to said that referral to the UN was not
assured as several influential Third World members of the IAEA board were not
at all convinced that Tehran plans to produce nuclear weapons.
Asked at a news conference about the possibility of sanctions being imposed on
Iran, Ahmadinejad said, "We believe that we should not give up to bullying in
international relations."
Iran clearly feels confident that Russia or China, which have the power of veto
in the Security Council, will block any move towards sanctions.
Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi on Sunday
recommended the IAEA - the UN's nuclear watchdog - to refrain from a
"unilateral attitude towards Iran's nuclear case", but he added that the UN
"was not the end of the world".
"If the IAEA puts aside its legal and technical work ... and acts politically,
the atmosphere will become radical," Asefi warned, expressing the hope that the
IAEA would pave the way for negotiations - or otherwise the Islamic republic
would make a decision on the basis of the outcome of the meeting.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country is building Iran's first
1,000-megawatt nuclear-powered electricity plant in the Persian Gulf port of
Bushehr at a cost of more than US$800 million, told the American Fox News
television that Iran was cooperating "sufficiently" with the IAEA, and said
sanctions would be "tough" and cause "more problems". At the same time, he
stressed that Iran must not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons, a point also
made by New Delhi.
"Today the Iranian side is working sufficiently in cooperation with the IAEA.
So let's proceed with the circumstances of today," Putin said, adding that
during a meeting he had last week with Ahmadinejad in New York on the sidelines
of a UN General Assembly summit, he assured him that the Iranian side "wants to
continue negotiations with the European three at least".
The EU-3 (Germany, Britain and France) had been the chief interlocutors with
Iran until they broke of negotiations recently over Tehran's decision to resume
uranium-conversion activities, which Iran claims is its right under the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Warning against pushing Iran too far so that it abandons the NPT, Francois
Nicoulaud, a former French envoy to Tehran, wrote in the influential daily Le
Monde that the "best way" to make sure that Iran does not transgress from its
NPT engagements is to intensify inspections by IAEA inspectors, while making
the ruling ayatollahs in Tehran understand that the international community is
"serious in its determination in case they fail in their engagements within the
framework of the NPT".
It is believed that the tough attitude taken by Ahmadinejad at the UN has its
roots in the regime's political landscape at home.
This point was indirectly confirmed by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw,
who told the BBC that considering the stance taken by Ahmadinejad during the
Iranian elections three months ago, his declarations at the UN were "not
surprising". While on the campaign trail, Ahmadinejad consistently repeated
Iran's right to develop the nuclear fuel cycle.
"We want the fuel cycle. It is the right of all countries, including Iran, and
we want it under the framework of the regulations that apply to all nations," a
triumphant-looking Ahmadinejad told reporters at Tehran airport on his arrival
from New York on Sunday. He took a 100-strong delegation with him, including
eight people from the protocol department and 25 security and intelligence
officers, but only a few diplomats and political experts.
Defending Iran's "inalienable right" to produce nuclear fuel, Ahmadinejad, a
former Revolutionary Guard officer, rejected the EU-3's offer to provide Iran's
nuclear-powered electricity plants with necessary fuel, saying "applying
nuclear energy for civilian purposes without possessing the fuel cycle is an
empty term".
"Nuclear plants in a country, if they make that country permanently dependent
on bullying states which spare no efforts to advance their own goals, will do
nothing but make the country dependent on others more than ever before."
At the UN, Ahmadinejad, who described himself during his election campaign as a
"humble street sweeper of the Iranian people", warned the West to consider Iran
as an equal and not an inferior nation or people, saying, "If some try to
impose their will on the Iranian people through resort to a language of force
and threat, we will reconsider our entire approach to the nuclear issue."
In his BBC interview, Straw, who's country is the present chair country of the
EU's roving presidency, described the speech as "unhelpful" and "all the more
disappointing" and reminded that the talks held with Iranian officials on the
side of the General Assembly by France, Germany, the UK and the EU foreign
policy chief Javier Solana, and with intermediaries such as UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan, had all failed to persuade the country to change its
policy.
"It is a difficult moment for the international community", Straw said,
stressing, however, that diplomacy was "the only way" open to solve the issue.
"We and our colleagues in France and Germany along with Javier Solana have
worked very hard for two years to resolve this difficult issue," Straw pointed
out, regretting that the Iranian president had offered "nothing in this speech
to suggest that he wants to abide by the agreement Iran has made".
An EU spokeswoman told the British Reuters news agency that Ahmadinejad's
language "leaves us no alternative but to pursue a UN referral".
While Iran's pro-government media hailed the performance of the president at
the UN, many Iranian political analysts expressed concern and frustration. "We
were expecting that he would not say anything plausible," one Iranian observer
said, reminding that the ultimate decisions in major issues in the Islamic
republic are in the hands of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader
of the theocratic regime.
In an interview with the independent daily Sharq (Orient), Ali Aqamohammdi, the
country's spokesman for the nuclear issue, said that Iran did not want to push
the EU-3 out of negotiations, but was "open to take other countries on board".
"If the Europeans accept their mistakes and agree to take into account our
rights, we can continue talking with them," he said, noting that the Iran-EU3
talks had taken "too much of our time for producing nothing tangible".
Safa Haeri is a Paris-based Iranian journalist covering the Middle East
and Central Asia.
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