The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Iran to the UN
Security Council on Saturday over fears it wants to produce nuclear
arms, raising the stakes in the diplomatic confrontation and
prompting Tehran to threaten immediate retaliation.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a mandate, which was read
on state television at evening, to chief of Iran's Atomic Energy
Organization Gholamreza Aghazadeh, ordering him to end the
implementation of the additional protocol of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) and other confidence-building measures as of
Sunday.
"As of Sunday, the voluntary implementation of the additional
protocol and other cooperative measures beyond the NPT must be
suspended according to the law," Ahmadinejad said, setting no exact
date for the resumption of the highly sensitive uranium
enrichment.
Ahmadinejad's order was delivered several hours after the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors in
Vienna adopted a resolution by 27 against three with five
abstentions at an emergency meeting to report Iran's nuclear issue
to the UN Security Council.
The resolution touched off prompt hails of the United States and
the European Union (EU), and even Russia, a longtime supporter of
Tehran over its nuclear dispute, also highly evaluated it.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin called upon
Iran to "respond constructively to the calls by the IAEA board of
governors for full-scale cooperation in seeking solutions to the
remaining problems, including the resumption of a voluntary
moratorium on uranium enrichment research."
However, Ahmadinejad denounced the IAEA's adoption of the
resolution, saying the decision was made under the pressure of
certain countries and did not have any legal justification.
The hardline president also stressed that the government would
substantially press on with the research and development of nuclear
technology and get ready to use it for peaceful purposes within the
framework of the IAEA regulations, the NPT clauses and the
Safeguard Agreement.
Shortly after the IAEA board's voting, Javad Vaeedi, deputy head
of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told the state
television from Vienna, Austria via phone that Iran would rule out
a Russian proposal to transfer sensitive nuclear enrichment to the
Russian soil designed to defuse the Iranian nuclear crisis.
Iran had previously posed an equivocal stance on the Russian
proposal, which suggested that the two countries establish a joint
venture on the Russian soil to enrich uranium for Iran so as to
secure Iran's legitimate rights on peaceful nuclear energy under
the guarantee that the technology will not be used for military
purposes.
"We have no adequate reason to seek the Russian proposal,"
Vaeedi stressed.
Vaeedi also said that Iran would resume industrial-scale uranium
enrichment, also citing the law passed by the Iranian Majlis
(Parliament) in December 2005 which demands the government cease
all voluntary measures on the nuclear program if hauled to the
United Nations.
The additional protocol of the NPT, which the Iranian government
signed in December 2003 under the persuasion of the European trio
of Britain, France and Germany but failed to be ratified by the
Iranian Majlis, requires its signatories to admit snap inspections
of the IAEA on nuclear facilities.
Iran defines the implementation of the addition protocol and
voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment work as voluntary and
temporary measures aimed to build confidence and immune from legal
binding.
Tehran suspended all activities related to uranium enrichment in
November 2004 to pave the way to negotiations with the European
trio over the promised economic and technological incentives.
However, Iran resumed uranium conversion work, a precursor to
the enrichment, in August 2005, which has paralyzed the bilateral
talks since then.
In a stiff atmosphere of the negotiations with the EU, the
Islamic Republic further restarted nuclear research work, namely
uranium enrichment at a minim scale, regardless of warnings of the
EU, a defiant move prompting the EU's call of the IAEA emergency
meeting.
Uranium enrichment is the key step for the construction of
nuclear fuel cycle, which Iran says is a legitimate right enshrined
by the NPT, but highly enriched uranium can be used as materials
for building atomic bombs.
Iran has said that it will not allow the legal right of
enrichment to be deprived even in the UN Security Council.
But, the EU holds that Iran's full mastery of nuclear fuel cycle
technology would possibly lead to military usage, based on the
United States' accusation that Iran is secretly developing nuclear
weapons.
Iran says that its nuclear program is fully peaceful and aimed
at meeting rising domestic demand for electricity.
(Xinhua News Agency February 5, 2006)
