By Mark Heinrich
VIENNA: Iran has created a new reality in its nuclear dispute with the world by achieving uranium enrichment, while Western powers pursue a strategy that has yet to pay off, diplomats associated with the IAEA said.
After the International Atomic Energy Agency reported last week that Iran had not met UN demands, US, British and French envoys are now seeking a Security Council resolution that would legally oblige Tehran to halt all enrichment activity. But a proud Iran is unlikely to buckle after overcoming technical barriers to producing low-enriched uranium as fuel for nuclear power plants, the diplomats in Vienna say.
The US-led push for UN action has prompted Iran to halt snap checks by the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, on suspected atomic sites, increasing uncertainty about Tehran’s activities.
The diplomats also argue that the Western strategy ignores Iranian security fears that may be partly motivating what the West suspects is a covert quest for atomic bombs.
“The fixation of the West, especially Washington, on ‘denying’ Iran enrichment capability is a stupid policy and a failure proven by the fact that Iran has now achieved it,” said a senior Vienna diplomat familiar with the IAEA’s Iran dossier.
“There is little doubt Iran aspires eventually to be able to enrich uranium to the high level needed for a bomb. But the only way to deter that is security and trade guarantees and only the Americans can offer that, via direct talks.”
Russia and China, big trade partners of Iran, feel it poses no imminent security threat and want the Security Council to return the nuclear issue to the IAEA. They could block sanctions as veto-wielding permanent members of the council.
But Iran has sown mistrust in much of the world because it hid enrichment research from the IAEA for 18 years, continues to deflect IAEA inquiries into suspected military links to nuclear work, and repeatedly calls for Israel to be destroyed.
The report by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei detailed Iran’s disregard of a March 29 Council call to suspend enrichment work and confirmed Tehran’s claim to have purified uranium in a test cascade of 164 centrifuges at its Natanz pilot plant.
Two more 164-centrifuge cascades are under construction. Iran says it will pursue industrial-scale enrichment based on 3,000 centrifuges it plans to start installing later in 2006. That many could yield enough fuel for one bomb within a year.
Mark Fitzpatrick, a proliferation expert who attended an atomic energy conference in Tehran last week, said he came away convinced Iran would never voluntarily scrap enrichment work.
“At most, some Iranians I met think it could be capped at research and development,” the International Institute for Strategic Studies researcher said. “For the sake of national pride and prestige, it could not be walked back to zero.”
Analysts say Iran apparently skipped several testing stages, key to ensuring finely calibrated centrifuges withstand long periods spinning at supersonic speed, in a race to make basic enrichment “a fact on the ground” for any future negotiations.
“Bypassing testing phases may come back to haunt them, as it’s more likely some cascades could crash later,” said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
But Iran now looks able to replicate centrifuge cascades at Natanz, which is under IAEA surveillance, or in facilities unreported or unknown to the agency, its diplomats say.
Of rising concern is Iran’s refusal since February to permit short-notice inspections at sites not declared to be nuclear. This has paralysed IAEA efforts to check out intelligence about secret military involvement in nuclear research.
Iran’s clampdown, retaliation for a vote of the IAEA board’s member states to refer Tehran to the Council, also sealed off sites where it may be developing an advanced centrifuge able to enrich 2-3 times faster than those now running at Natanz.
“Losing the IAEA as a counterweight to provide truth gives worst-case scenarios a free ride and the policymakers start to treat them as fact,” said David Albright, a proliferation think tank director, alluding to US talk of war to rein in Iran.
Veiled Iranian threats to bolt from the NPT if the Security Council moves toward sanctions have caused disquiet in the IAEA.
Diplomats say ElBaradei has privately urged the West to accept limited enrichment in Iran under strict IAEA monitoring, and wants Washington to open dialogue with Tehran as it has with North Korea to try to stem Pyongyang’s nuclear arms programme. “Iran is not clarifying outstanding questions about its intentions because it is saving the answers as bargaining levers for an overall political settlement which will have to involve Washington,” said the senior diplomat in Vienna.
“If the United States can engage North Korea, why not Iran?” Reuters
