The Weekend Australian
September 20, 2003 Saturday Preprints Edition
World gives Iran an ultimatum
THE stage was set for a showdown between Iran and the West after the UN's nuclear watchdog set a late-October deadline for the Middle East nation to prove it was not seeking nuclear weapons, or be saddled with sanctions. Iran reacted angrily to what it saw as an unfair ultimatum set by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said his country would have to take a fresh look at its relationship with the agency.
Iran's threat to suspend co-operation with the IAEA, headed by Mohamed ElBaradei, prompted international fears that Tehran could follow the example of North Korea by renouncing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which forbids research in atomic weapons. But Iranian Vice-President and atomic energy agency chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh told the IAEA's general conference in Vienna on Monday that Tehran remained fully committed to the NPT despite its objections to the deadline. Iran's reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, also denied his country was seeking nuclear weapons. "Our slogan for the atomic bomb and weapons of mass destruction is no, no, no, but for advanced technology including peaceful nuclear technology is yes, yes, yes."
The IAEA ultimatum calls on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, open all nuclear sites for inspection, accept environmental testing and provide a detailed list of its nuclear-related imports. Failure to satisfy the IAEA could mean Iran is declared in violation of the NPT when the IAEA's board of governors convenes again in Vienna on November 20. The issue could be referred to the UN Security Council leading to the possible imposition of sanctions.
The IAEA is particularly concerned about Iran's capacity for nuclear enrichment, which the agency claims is one area on which Tehran has been reluctant to come clean. Last month, IAEA inspectors found traces of weapons-grade enriched uranium at Natanz, a plant being built about 500km south of Tehran. Iran claims the samples at Natanz were due to contamination of imported equipment.
Although voicing its commitment to the IAEA, Iran showed no sign of being prepared to bow to the resolution's demands. Iran accuses Washington of seeking a pretext to invade the Islamic republic as it had its neighbours Afghanistan and Iraq. Diplomats in Tehran said Iran's decision-making process was complicated by divisions in the ruling establishment. While the Khatami-led Government has been pushing for greater co-operation with the IAEA, powerful hardliners close to the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have argued the opposite.
Mohsen Mirdamadi, the head of parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, said the issue had now become one of national prestige, making it "more complex and more difficult to solve".
In black and white
IRAN's press reacted angrily to the IAEA's ultimatum. The ultra-hardline Jomhuri-ye Eslami urged Tehran not to "pay any attention to the US, the Europeans and international organisations ... and accept that the right path is the one that the North Koreans have chosen". The Kayhan newspaper advocated pulling out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and accused the EU and the US of seeking to "completely disarm Iran and convert it to a weak and feeble country like Iraq in order to overrun it". The centrist Entekhab blamed the US. "This will be the result of months of efforts by the US to apply pressure on the international community to impose sanctions against Tehran." However, the "sensitive and dangerous situation" should force the country's diplomats to act with "wisdom and the utmost seriousness", possibly leading to "further discussions and diplomatic relations" with influential IAEA nations. The Saudi daily Al-Watan sympathised with Iran, saying that the US was now fighting a "reverse war". Iran was America's next target after the "failure of the US military offensive in Iraq and Washington's inability to persuade the Europeans to fight with them".
London's Financial Times, warned Iran would pay a heavy price if it turned its back on the IAEA. "Failure to listen to the board would deepen the country's political isolation." But the paper also reminded the IAEA that persuading Tehran to give up its nuclear goals would require a "more sophisticated strategy" that included security guarantees in a region where Iran "feels unsafe and weapons of mass destruction proliferate". Britain's The Guardian sympathised with Iran's "increasingly vulnerable situation". "Look one way and there stands a hostile, nuclear-armed Israel; look another, and there stands nuclear-armed Sunni Muslim Pakistan. Almost all around -- in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in its expanding Gulf, Central Asian and Black Sea bases -- stands the awesome military might of America. Barely a week goes by without US officials making threatening noises towards Iran, decrying its alleged support of international terrorism, encouraging internal civil insurrection, or reminding it that [the] US deems it to be a 'rogue state'." The US administration's conduct, the paper concluded, was "turning worrying possibilities into dangerously self-fulfilling prophecies".
WATCH THIS SPACE: Analysts fear that imposing sanctions could inflame the crisis.
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