WASHINGTON - Charges by United States President Barack Obama and the leaders of
France and Britain on Friday that Iran is building a secret underground plant
to enrich uranium appear certain to heighten tensions just days before critical
talks between Tehran and its three accusers, as well as Germany, China and
Russia.
Also raising the tension, Iran test-fired three short-range missiles on Sunday
and on Monday was reported to have successfully launched the Shahab-3 missile,
which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and has a range of up to nearly
2,000 kilometers. Iranian television broadcast footage of the Shahab-3 being
fired from desert terrain.
The charges, which were issued at a previously unscheduled
press conference at the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Pittsburgh, are also
certain to bolster longstanding calls by Israel and right-wing hawks in the US
to immediately impose "crippling sanctions" against Tehran, even as the Obama
administration begins to formally engage it at talks set to begin in Geneva on
October 1.
"The US and other countries must immediately impose crippling sanctions on the
Iranian regime, including cutting off Iran's imports of gasoline," said Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"The world cannot stand by and watch the nightmare of a nuclear-armed Iran
become reality."
Even the traditionally dovish chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, John Kerry, while asserting his continued support for diplomatic
engagement with Iran, insisted that "now is the time to supplement engagement
with more robust international sanctions".
Pressure on Tehran to halt its nuclear program, he said, should be escalated in
light of what he called "Iran's continuing deception" about its nuclear
activities.
For its part, Tehran denied that it had misled the international community
about the construction of the new facility near the holy city of Qom to enrich
uranium similar in design to its Natanz plant. The latter has been subject to
inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since its existence
was publicly exposed by an Iraqi-based anti-government group in 2002.
Tehran said it had sent a letter to the IAEA informing it of what it called a
"pilot fuel enrichment plant" on September 21.
A US official, who briefed the press on background in Pittsburgh on Friday,
argued, however, that Iran sent the letter only because it had "learned that
the secrecy of the facility was compromised".
In an interview on Thursday with Time Magazine in New York, where he has been
attending the opening of the United Nations General Assembly last week,
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad insisted that Iran was in full compliance with
IAEA rules.
"If I were Obama's adviser, I would definitely advise him to refrain from
making this statement because it is definitely a mistake," he said.
In Vienna, the IAEA's press office confirmed receipt of the letter which,
according to a spokesman, had also insisted that no nuclear material had yet
been introduced into the new plant.
Under the basic Safeguards Agreement of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT), of which Iran is a signatory, member states are required to declare
their nuclear facilities and designs at least 180 days before introducing
nuclear materials into them.
In his remarks, Obama said Western intelligence agencies had been tracking
construction of the plant for "several years" and that "its size and
configuration ... [are] inconsistent with a peaceful program".
"Iran's decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the
IAEA represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the
non-proliferation regime," he said, noting that German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, who claimed to have a scheduling conflict, "wished to associate herself
with his remarks".
"We remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran to address the
nuclear issue through the P5-plus-1 [the five permanent members of the UN
Security Council plus Germany] negotiations," Obama said in reference to the
October 1 meeting.
"At that meeting, Iran must be prepared to cooperate fully and comprehensively
with the IAEA to take concrete steps to create confidence and transparency in
its nuclear program and to demonstrate that it is committed to establishing its
peaceful intentions through meaningful dialogue and concrete actions," he
added.
One US official who later briefed the press said intelligence officials from
Washington, Paris and London had briefed the IAEA about the plant on Thursday.
"And the IAEA, I'm happy to say, is following up very vigorously," he added.
For its part, the IAEA said it had requested Tehran to "provide specific
information and access to the facility as soon as possible".
The official insisted that an additional protocol of the safeguards agreement
between Iran and the IAEA that Tehran voluntarily accepted in 2003 required it
"to declare nuclear facilities as soon as they begin construction".
According to the official, construction on the new facility began before March
2007 when he said Tehran unilaterally renounced its acceptance and that, in any
case, the IAEA did not consider the renunciation valid. "So clearly this is
inconsistent ... obviously a violation of their safeguards agreement," the
official concluded.
Tehran has claimed that the additional protocol, which was never ratified by
its parliament, ceased to be binding on it as of October 2005, when it first
announced its withdrawal. Diplomatic sources cited by the BBC on Friday said
work on the plant began in earnest in 2006.
The US official said Washington was sharing the "very sensitive intelligence
information" collected to date with both Russia and China to gain their support
for international sanctions in the event that the negotiations that begin this
week do not quickly bear fruit.
While Obama did not himself threaten sanctions against Tehran, both French
President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown did so
explicitly.
"We cannot let the Iranian leaders gain time while the motors are running," the
French president said in an apparent reference to Iran's continued defiance of
Security Council resolutions that it halt its uranium-enrichment activities at
Natanz. "If by December there is not an in-depth change by the Iranian leaders,
sanctions will have to be taken."
"Confronted by the serial deception of many years, the international community
has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand," Brown added. "And I say on
behalf of the United Kingdom today, we will not let this matter rest. And we
are prepared to implement further and more stringent sanctions."
At the UN General Assembly last week, Obama had lobbied both Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao - whose governments have
previously expressed strong skepticism about the desirability of increased
sanctions against Iran - for support for a hard line at the talks with Tehran.
The Russian leader was more responsive than in the past when Russia had all but
ruled out additional sanctions against Tehran. China reportedly remains
opposed, but one of the briefing officials on Friday said, "We should stay
tuned for the Chinese position in the coming days now that they are aware of
this new information."
"This gives the United States and its partners a stronger hand in the
negotiations, [as] Iran is looking very embarrassed right now," according to
Michael Levi, an expert on Iran's nuclear program at the Council on Foreign
Relations.
He added that it also puts Obama in a "bit of a tricky position because this is
another talking point for people who say that Iran is incorrigible and that
Obama is wasting his time talking to them".
But Marc Lynch, a Middle East expert at George Washington University, said
Friday's move may reduce the chances of confrontation, if only because it may
change Iran's own calculations by demonstrating "the quality of Western
intelligence and the difficulty of deception and denial ..."
"The timing of the announcement, immediately following the consultations at the
UN and the G-20 and just before the [October 1] meetings, makes it seem
extremely likely that the Obama administration has been waiting for just the
right moment to play this card," he wrote on his blog on foreignpolicy.com.
"Now they have. It strengthens the P5+1 bargaining position ahead of October 1,
changes Iranian calculations, and lays the foundations for a more serious kind
of engagement," Lynch added.
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