IAEA chief says Iran 'three to eight' years from nuclear weapon
LUXEMBOURG (Thomson Financial) - The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog expressed concern Thursday about Iran's growing nuclear capacity and his organisation's powerlessness to monitor the programme.
He said it was difficult to say exactly how far Iran was away from developing a nuclear weapon, should it want to do that, but that it could happen in the next decade.
"In other words three to eight years from now," he said. "We are moving toward Iran building capacity and knowledge without the agency in a position to be able to verify the nature or the scope of that programme," Mohamed Elbaradei told reporters in Luxembourg.
"The agency level of knowledge is deteriorating, and the parties are not getting together and negotiating," he said. "I exhort all the parties to create the conditions to go into full negotiations."
"If we continue in that direction we will end up with a major confrontation, we would reduce the possibilities of a peaceful resolution of that issue," he said on the sidelines of a conference on preventing nuclear catastrophe.
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Both France and the US have reacted to the report by renewing calls for sanctions against Iran.
"Iran needs to listen to the international community and to suspend its enrichment activities as a confidence-building measure but also the international community should do its utmost to engage Iran into comprehensive dialogue," Elbaradei said.
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Nuclear programme depends on political agendas
By Daniel Dombey and Roula Khalaf in London
When tensions are running high throughout the Middle East and between Tehran and Washington, the question of how far forward Iran is with its nuclear programme could barely be more important.
The answer depends on who you ask – and what their political agenda is. One group emphasises the speed of Iran’s progress, to justify rejection of the current strategy of incremental sanctions designed to persuade Tehran to rein in its programme. The other plays down Iran’s development, insisting there is plenty of time for the slow-acting sanctions to change Iran’s behaviour.
The first group includes an unlikely collection of people. John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, thinks the US should contemplate using force against Iran. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, thinks the west has to compromise more. Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran’s president, says nothing will deter Tehran from forging ahead.
All three, however, have recently argued that Iran’s recent advances demonstrate that the current UN sanctions policy has failed.
“Iran has clearly mastered the enrichment technology now,” Mr Bolton told the UK’s Daily Telegraph last week, referring to uranium enrichment, which can produce both nuclear fuel and weapons grade material.
“We believe they pretty much have the knowledge about how to enrich,’’ Mohamed ElBaradei told the New York Times.
“I declare that as of today our dear country has joined the nuclear club of nations and can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale,” Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said at a ceremony at Iran’s nuclear facility in Natanz on April 9.
Champions of the UN’s incremental approach convey a different message. Nicholas Burns, US undersecretary of state, emphasises the difficulty of uranium enrichment and dismisses Iranian announcements as “fantastic claims”. He says: “There is still time for diplomacy.”
European Union diplomats agree. They argue that Iran has rushed ahead with its programme for political reasons when it has still failed to master the technology and may face greater risk of breakdowns as a results.
Part of the reason for the diverging views is the limited information available: the IAEA this week lamented that its knowledge of Iran’s activities had “deteriorated”.
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Ahmadinejad says big powers unable to make Iran stop nuclear program
TEHRAN, May 24 (KUNA) -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday the big powers were unable to undermine will of the Iranian people who sought to benefit from peaceful use of nuclear technology.
"The arrogant powers cannot stop our scientific march in the nuclear field because our people is united and determined to use their right to benefit from the peaceful nuclear technology, we will not abondon this right by all means," Ahmadinejad said in an address in a function in Isfahan, central Iran.
Iran will continue with its nuclear program, he said, and would neglect all pressure exercised by the Western countries to suspend the program.
"Our march to possess nuclear technology is peaceful," he said.Ahmadinejad had announced that Iran has begun uranium enrichment at industrial level.
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Pertinent Links:
1) IAEA chief says Iran 'three to eight' years from nuclear weapon
2) Nuclear programme depends on political agendas
3) Ahmadinejad says big powers unable to make Iran stop nuclear program
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