UNITED NATIONS — Diplomats at the United Nations see the latest International Atomic Energy Agency annual report seeking Iran's cooperation on nuclear plant inspections as yet another sign of mounting pressure on Tehran. But what does the latest IAEA report mean and what happens next?
"Clearly the pressure is ratcheting up on Iran to come completely clean on its nuclear program," said Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of Britain, just named Monday to be London's special representative in neighboring Iraq beginning in September. "That is coming out of the IAEA itself, out of the United States and now out of the European Union who are considering their relationship with Iran."
He spoke with reporters after closed-door consultations with the U.N. Security Council on other matters.
Russia, which has helped Iran to develop some of its nuclear plants, also has called for cooperation between Iran and the IAEA.
Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA director general, told the board of governors of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency in Vienna Monday that Iran has failed to report certain nuclear material and activities and needs to quickly implement an additional international agreement in order to provide credible assurances regarding the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities.
"We would like to start with those who carry the ball at the moment," Greenstock said. "We'll see what the board has to say."
He said, "We haven't yet, discussed this in the council. We'll wait to see what ball gets passed from the IAEA and then take a decision."
That may mean a few days wait, according to IAEA officials, who noted Iran was No. 7 on the agenda of the board, which was not expected to take up the topic for another day or two.
The options open to the board were few, perhaps a statement appealing to Iran "to subject themselves to more intrusive inspections," said one official, or, less likely, a resolution.
While carrying the weight of international law, an IAEA Board resolution, realistically, would be unenforceable.
However, it could refer the matter to the Security Council.
"We will wait to hear for definitive directions from the IAEA before any council action," said a U.S. official. "We're concerned over a very serious situation and we'd like to know the truth."
ElBaradei said in the report that corrective actions are being taken in cooperation with the Iranian authorities. But he added: "I continue to call on Iran, as with all states with significant nuclear programs, to conclude and bring into force an additional protocol at an early date, in order to enhance the agency's ability to provide credible assurances regarding the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities."
Calling on Iran in the meantime to permit the IAEA to take environmental samples at the particular location where allegations about enrichment activities exist, he said: "This is clearly in the interest of both the agency and Iran."
Iran has said it was not producing nuclear weapons, adding that such a move would not help with stability in the region.
However, the IAEA in a February visit to Iran found indications of far more nuclear activity than Tehran had admitted.
"It's long been very clear to outside observers that Iran does not have a crash program to build a bomb the way Iraq had and there is nothing illegal about developing these capabilities as long as you follow all the IAEA requirements," said Joseph Cirincione, senior associate and director at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
"They can develop civilian nuclear power, but they will also acquire knowledge for making a bomb," he told United Press International in a telephone interview. "They imported nuclear materials they did not declare, and they started operating some of their processing equipment before they declared it.
"About 10 years ago, Iran is believed to have received 1.8 tons of uranium ore from China," he said, "some of it processed into uranium and uranium products And they didn't declare it. It was clear to IAEA inspectors in February that Iran could not have built the number of centrifuges they had without testing some of them. So clearly they had used some of this nuclear material in centrifuges before declaring that they had the centrifuges."
Cirincione said it did not mean Iran is close to making a bomb, "But it does mean that it is further along than we previously thought. There is nothing happening this year or next year. If they keep continuing at this pace, they at some time this decade will be able to produce a bomb."
The additional protocols to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty aim to enhance the IAEA's ability to provide "credible, comprehensive assurances" regarding all NPT States. So far only 35 countries have brought additional protocols into force.
Work was continuing on the correctness and completeness of Iran's declaration to ensure that all its nuclear material had been declared and was under safeguards, the report said. "In this respect, we are continuing our efforts — through technical discussions, inspection and environmental sample analysis — to understand all aspects of Iran's nuclear program, including the research and development work relevant to its uranium conversion and enrichment program and its program for the use of heavy water," ElBaradei said.
On North Korea, the IAEA chief said his agency had not performed any safeguard functions there since December, when the Pyongyang government asked for the agency's withdrawal.
"We cannot, therefore, provide any assurances about the non-diversion of nuclear material for weapons or other explosive devices in the Democratic Republic of Korea," he said. "We remain, however, ready to assist all concerned parties, through our verification role, in bringing the DPRK back to the non-proliferation regime, and redress a most serious challenge to that regime."
Cirincione said, "North Korea was more overt than Iran. [But] I don't believe that Iran has reached a conclusion to build a bomb although they certainly want to be in a position to build a bomb."
"What you really have to do is to use all diplomatic and economic tools to convince Iran from having a uranium enrichment program," he said. "As long as they have it, the United States won't trust them and that's why you heard such a strongly worded statement from ElBaradei."
On Iraq, ElBaradei said all IAEA inspectors were withdrawn on the eve of the war in March "before having been able to complete its Security Council-mandated work to verify the presence or absence of prohibited nuclear activities."
However, ElBaradei said, the agency's mandate still stood even as the occupying powers had assumed the function.
As for nuclear terrorism, he said agency assistance to state members of the IAEA in helping to put in place protective measures "is continuing at an exceptionally fast pace," with 35 advisory and evaluation missions conducted and 54 training courses, workshops and seminars convened since September 2001.
The work included helping countries make use of advanced analytical methods for nuclear material seized in illicit trafficking incidents; improving coordination between the nuclear scientific community and the law enforcement community; regional training courses in physical protection; assessment of states' capabilities to detect nuclear and other radioactive material at their borders; and the three-way initiative by the IAEA, the United States and the Russian Federation seeking to secure vulnerable radioactive sources within the territories of the former Soviet Union.
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