China Warned Against Impeding Iran Diplomacy
UNITED NATIONS — As the U.N. atomic agency acknowledged that its information about Iran's nuclear program is "diminishing," Western officials vowed yesterday to ratchet up new punitive measures against Tehran, warning against the failure of diplomacy and hinting that there are other options to stop Iran from gaining nuclear capabilities.
Tehran, meanwhile, hailed yesterday's International Atomic Energy Agency report, highlighting passages about Iran's cooperation with the agency and saying that it proves no new Security Council sanctions are justified. But, as a sign of increased internal unease about his policies, President Ahmadinejad cracked down on local critics, accusing them of nuclear espionage.
In Jerusalem, unnamed officials were reported by the Reuters news agency as saying Prime Minister Olmert instructed his top aides to draft policies that would prepare the country for the new reality on the day after Iran has achieved nuclear capability. No official confirmation of the Reuters report was immediately available.
America and its allies vowed to use the IAEA report as a springboard for tightening up existing sanctions on Iran. "I don't think China would want to be in a position to cause failure of diplomacy," America's U.N. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, told reporters. He spoke a day after China blocked a Security Council statement on the worsening human-rights conditions in Burma, as Beijing increasingly flexes its diplomatic muscles to prevent multilateral sanctions against its allies.
"I hope not," China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, told The New York Sun when asked if the Iran nuclear issue would soon return to the council. "I don't like this issue being discussed here." He did not discount the possibility that new sanctions on Iran would be proposed, however, saying, "We have to see what we have on the sanctions, because we already have two resolutions on sanctions."
The Bush administration has to date declined to exclude the military option, and Mr. Khalilzad said yesterday, "I think it's in everyone's interest for this world-defining issue to be resolved diplomatically." He added, however, that "for diplomacy to succeed, it needs widely supported broad and biting sanctions to effect the calculations of the regime in Iran." Iran "must come clean on all outstanding issues without delay," a British Foreign Office spokesman, who by British tradition was not identified, said. If the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, fails to engage Tehran diplomatically, and "as the IAEA report now shows that Iran has still not addressed several issues about its nuclear program, we will pursue further Security Council and E.U. sanctions," the spokesman added.
Since early 2006, the IAEA "has not received the type of information that Iran had previously been providing," yesterday's report by its director general, Mohamed El-Baradei stated. "As a result, the Agency's knowledge about Iran's current nuclear program is diminishing." The IAEA, however, stressed that Iran has been more forthcoming and "provided the Agency with access" to its scientists and facilities, helping to clarify past nuclear activities.
Most damaging for Tehran, the reported concluded that "contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities." Rather than suspending uranium enrichment, Iran disclosed a mechanical test of a "new generation of centrifuge design," the IAEA, for the first time, reported yesterday.
The report was cheered in Tehran. Mr. ElBaradei "has cleared the way for sending back the case to the agency," the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Reza Aqazadeh, said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. Members of the council "should not pursue illegal decisions and acts under the pressure of the U.S., which will tarnish the image of the Security Council," Mr. Aqazadeh added.
He referred to an often repeated declaration by Mr. Ahmadinejad, arguing that Iran's Security Council file is "closed" and that its nuclear program should be handled by the IAEA, where it would be treated like a recognized nuclear power. This argument, which has led to confrontation with European countries that in the past preferred negotiating with Iran, is increasingly criticized by Iranian clerics who seem to be losing power to Mr. Ahmadinejad's circle of allies.
Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements about internal dissent are growing tougher and increasingly include reports about arrests of his critics on espionage charges. The best-known case last spring was of a former nuclear negotiator, Hussein Moussavian, who was detained on suspicions of passing information to Britain and other Western countries. And "in the case of nuclear espionage, other people have been identified and arrested," the prosecutor general, Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi, said yesterday, according to IRNA.
