http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L0282677.htm
UN needs more power to find any Iran nukes -envoys 02 Dec 2004 17:58:01 GMT Source: Reuters (Adds diplomats, paragraphs 12-14; background) By Louis Charbonneau VIENNA, Dec 2 (Reuters) - There is little hope U.N. inspectors will find any secret Iranian atomic weapons programme without increased inspection powers, Western diplomats and a non-proliferation expert said on Thursday. The United States accuses Iran of having a clandestine nuclear arms programme, but Tehran insists its atomic operations are purely for electricity generation. Earlier this week Iran escaped possible U.N. Security Council economic sanctions after agreeing to freeze all activities which could be used to make bomb-grade material. But several military sites that inspectors would like to visit are legally off-limits to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It only has clear rights to go to facilities declared to it as nuclear sites. Access to other sites is possible, but must be negotiated and can be highly problematic. Last December, Iran signed the IAEA's Additional Protocol, granting it more authority to conduct short-notice, intrusive inspections. Although the protocol has not been ratified, Tehran has been acting as if it was in force. "If a country has a strategy for hiding its nuclear programme, then the Additional Protocol is of little use," a U.N. diplomat said, adding that the IAEA would not have been able to prove Libya had a nuclear arms programme if Muammar Gaddafi had not confessed and handed over the bomb designs. A group of Iranian exiles and the United States suspect there is secret atomic bomb work at the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran and Lavizan II in northeastern Tehran. "The IAEA simply has no authority to go to (potential nuclear weapons) sites that are not declared nuclear sites," a diplomat close to the IAEA inspection process said. Demands for access to such sites would have to be justified with hard proof that nuclear materials have been used there, he said. Although it would like to, the IAEA has not asked to inspect Lavizan II, because accusations by Iranian exiles with a clear agenda were not considered sufficient legal grounds, he said. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has asked Iran for access to Parchin, but has received no response from Tehran. DIVERSIONARY TACTIC One Western diplomat close to the European Union's "Big Three" -- France, Britain and Germany -- told Reuters the trio were concerned that Iran had haggled hard over the text of an IAEA resolution this week as a diversionary tactic. He and another EU-member diplomat said Iran's fight for the right to use 20 centrifuges, machines that can produce nuclear fuel for power plants or weapons, during a freeze of its uranium enrichment programme, may have been an attempt to distract them. "They're worried that Iran has been diverting attention from more important issues ... like access to these sites," one said. An IAEA spokesman declined to comment. One U.N. diplomat described it as "depressing" that the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) -- an Iranian exile group with a history of revealing hidden nuclear sites in Iran -- said recently that Lavizan II housed a secret atomic weapons site. Days later reported it was being stripped clean. Diplomats and weapons experts said the IAEA inspection process had been dealt a severe blow this week when the EU gave in to Iran's demands that a clause demanding it grant the IAEA "unrestricted access" be removed from a draft resolution. The resolution passed by the IAEA board only calls on Iran to grant access "in accordance with the Additional Protocol". "It was a terrible blow to this effort to find these potential nuclear weapons sites," said David Albright, a former U.N. arms inspector and head of a Washington-based think-tank. A Western diplomat close to the IAEA said the suggestion that IAEA inspections were not working reminded him of U.S. accusations that inspections in pre-war Iraq were ineffective. But in Iraq, U.N. inspectors were armed with a U.N. Security Council mandate that allowed them to go anywhere, any time. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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