Iran To Face Security Council
Tehran Defiant On IAEA Vote

By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 5, 2006

VIENNA, Feb. 4 -- Members of the International Atomic Energy Agency voted Saturday to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over concerns that the country is trying to develop nuclear weapons, decisively ending Iran's years-long effort to forestall action that could lead to further pressure on Tehran.

The 35-member IAEA board sent a resolution to the highest U.N. body, expressing "serious concerns" about Iran's nuclear ambitions after nearly three years of trying to verify whether the country was pursuing a nuclear program for civilian or military purposes.

In response to the IAEA vote, Iran announced that it would resume its uranium enrichment activities and would no longer allow IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities.

The decision, 27 to 3, handed the United States and European countries a diplomatic victory. Russia and China were initially reluctant to report Iran to the council but joined the stepped-up campaign after demanding that any action against Iran be deferred at least until March. In the end, just three countries -- Syria, Cuba and Venezuela -- voted against the measure. Five countries abstained.

The vote left unclear what action Iran might face. The Security Council could impose economic sanctions or an oil embargo against Iran. But Russia and China, which as permanent members of the council wield veto power, have expressed strong opposition to any significant punitive measures. U.S. and European diplomats have said that they envision a "graduated" diplomatic approach to slowly build pressure on Iran.

In forwarding the matter to the Security Council, the board's resolution cited "Iran's many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply" with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the "absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes resulting from the history of concealment."

The resolution signifies "a continuing lack of confidence in Iran's nuclear intentions," said British envoy Peter Jenkins. "Board members simply cannot understand why Iran is so determined to press on with its enrichment program." Some forms of enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons, though Iran maintains its research will be used only to produce electrical power.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, chastised the IAEA governing board for yielding to "political pressure of a few countries and without any legal justification."

"As of Sunday, the voluntary implementation of the additional protocol and other cooperation beyond the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has to be suspended under the law," Ahmadinejad said in a letter to Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who also is the head of the Iran's nuclear agency, Reuters reported.

In Washington, President Bush said in a statement that "the path chosen by Iran's new leaders -- threats, concealment, and breaking international agreements and IAEA seals -- will not succeed and will not be tolerated by the international community."

Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns called the vote "a powerful message of condemnation" and a "clear rebuke" of Iran.

"Diplomacy is now in a new phase," he told reporters in a conference call, warning that the Iranian government faces tough decisions in the coming month. "I cannot say we are filled with hope the Iranians will do the right thing."

Burns said that under an agreement reached in London this week with other permanent members of the Security Council, the United States will not press to bring up the Iranian issue this month, while the United States holds the council's presidency. But he said five demands made of Iran in the resolution -- including suspending enrichment activities and granting inspectors enhanced access to its facilities -- were the minimum steps Iran needed to take to avoid a Security Council debate in March.

"Iran is going to have to meet those conditions and show it has taken a fundamentally different course," Burns said. "We are going to have to see a change of heart by Iran."

It was unclear whether Iran -- which has endured years of diplomatic isolation -- would step back from its positions. Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and its chief nuclear negotiator, recently said the country's decision in January to resume uranium enrichment activities after a voluntary, two-year suspension was "nonnegotiable." It was that decision that triggered the IAEA board meeting this week.

Some Iranian officials have also threatened to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to raise oil prices if their case was forwarded to the Security Council. Political analysts have also warned of Iran's ability to foment problems in neighboring Iraq.

Russian officials have offered to enrich uranium for Iran on Russian soil, a compromise that would allow Iran access to enriched uranium but prevent it from becoming engaged in one of the most sensitive aspects of the nuclear fuel production cycle. But Javed Vaeidi, an Iranian nuclear negotiator, told the Associated Press on Saturday that the idea was now dead.

As a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to develop nuclear technology and to enrich uranium. But it became enmeshed in controversy in 2002 when Iranian dissidents disclosed that the country had concealed its nuclear programs for almost two decades. Iran suspended the most controversial parts of its activities, and European diplomats agreed not to pursue Security Council action while they conducted intensive negotiations to ensure that Iran's program was and would remain peaceful.

The negotiations floundered in August when Iran resumed uranium conversion, a prelude to enrichment, and again in January when it restarted work on its uranium enrichment program, prompting the Europeans to declare their negotiations at an impasse and to begin a drive to report Iran to the Security Council. U.S. officials said that move was long overdue.

In recent months, international inspectors have found documents in Iran that were related to bomb-making but no evidence of a bomb-making program. The inspectors have complained, however, that they have been unable to make a solid determination because Iran has not provided the relevant information or access to people, documents and facilities.

Recent provocative remarks by Ahmadinejad -- including questioning the Holocaust, saying Israel should be "wiped off the map" and offering to transfer nuclear know-how to other Islamic countries -- have increased concern about Iran's intentions and raised the pressure for the IAEA board to demand tougher confidence-building measures.

Several factors contributed to the lopsided vote Saturday, including a decision this week by the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- the five permanent members of the Security Council -- to give Iran a one-month grace period to adopt a more conciliatory approach.

The final resolution also removed any reference to Iran's "non-compliance" with its nuclear treaty obligations and the article of the Non-Proliferation Treaty that it has violated.

In an effort to win support from 16 members of the Non-Aligned Movement, a group dating from the Cold War, the resolution included a paragraph "recognizing that a solution to the Iranian issue would contribute to global non-proliferation efforts and realizing the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery."

The language significantly softened the movement's demand for a reference to creating a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, which the United States saw as a slap at Israel.

The resolution is ambiguous about whether the IAEA board must act again at the end of the one-month grace period in order to officially request Security Council action. The United States believes the resolution moves the issue to the Security Council.

But other countries -- including many from the Non-Aligned Movement -- say the resolution simply informs the council about the issue, and that the IAEA board must vote again in another month if it wants the council to actually take action.

Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.