IAEA Asks Iran for More Samples

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have requested additional samples from machinery removed from a bulldozed nuclear site in Iran to confirm findings of weapon-grade uranium, the London Sunday Times reported yesterday (see GSN, May 12).

Diplomats said Saturday that they want to determine whether weapons-related activity occurred at the Physics Research Center at Lavizan. They are seeking access to particular machines and equipment once used at the site.

“It’s painstaking work and we’ve got to get these things right,” said an agency official. “You’re looking at parts per trillion in some of these tests — it’s very hard to know the significance and we’re requesting further sampling” (Tom Walker, Sunday Times, May 14).

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday disputed reports that inspectors had found traces of highly enriched uranium on equipment from Lavizan, United Press International reported.

He accused countries of seeking to deprive Iran of its nuclear rights (United Press International, May 14).

European Union foreign ministers are scheduled today to discuss a broadened incentives package designed to induce Tehran to give up its uranium enrichment activities, the Associated Press reported.

European officials said they would try to build upon an economic and political deal that Iran rejected last year. A document on the official EU Web site says the ministers are likely for the first time to officially “support Iran’s development of a safe, sustainable and proliferation-proof civilian nuclear program, if international concerns were fully addressed.”

The offer is “a positive thing,” said IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.

“I hope that package will be comprehensive, will be bold,” he said Saturday. “I hope that package will enable Iran to come back to the negotiating table” (Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press I, May 15).

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said today that the proposal would be bold, Agence France-Presse reported.

“It will be a generous package, a bold package, that will contain issues relating to nuclear, economic matters, and maybe, if necessary, security matters,” he said. “We are preparing a package (so) that it will be difficult for them to say no if what they really want is energy.”

Ahmadinejad has already publicly rejected any offer that requires Iran to suspend uranium enrichment.

“I am surprised that a group of people hold meetings without us being present there and make decisions for us,” the Iranian president said.

Solana said that Tehran has not yet seen the package (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, May 15).

“The suspension of uranium enrichment and reprocessing remains a red line for the Europeans. It certainly remains a red line for us. We believe it’s a red line for Russia and China,” John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Friday.

Bolton said the United States had not “caved in” by postponing council debate for two weeks on a binding resolution demanding Tehran halt all sensitive nuclear work, AFP reported.

“This is a delay but it’s intended to show the American willingness to try and exhaust every diplomatic possibility, and it proves again that the key to this still lies in Iran’s hands,” he said (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, May 12).

Ahmadinejad Saturday that he was open to nuclear talks, but not with “countries that hang planes with bombs over our heads,” AP reported.

“If they want to threaten the use of force we will not go into dialogue with them,” he said (Associated Press II/Miami Herald, May 14).

The Bush administration is rejecting growing pressure to conduct bilateral talks with Tehran, AFP reported Friday.

Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright called on President George W. Bush to reply to a letter sent to him last week by Ahmadinejad.

“Maybe it is the beginning of an understanding that they must come to some terms with the international community,” Kissinger said.

The State Department dismissed the notion.

“The problems that Iran has right now are with the rest of the world, not just between the United States and Iran,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

McCormack said channels existed for contact between the two countries. He named the Swiss Embassy in Tehran; the Pakistani Embassy in the United States; Iran’s U.N. mission in New York; and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad.

A senior U.S. official, meanwhile, said that despite some public comments, the European Union wanted the United States to remain in a supporting role in negotiations with Tehran.

“It’s in our interest to be exactly where we are,” the official said. “We have absolutely zero pressure” (Peter Mackler, Agence France-Presse III/Yahoo!News, May 12).

Ahmadinejad said Saturday the letter to Bush was intended to begin “a new political literature” rather than address the nuclear standoff, AP reported.

“The letter I sent to President Bush has nothing to do with the nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the relations between Iran and the U.S.,” he said. “This letter was meant to open a new horizon for politicians in the world and to lay down the foundation for a new political literature ... based on justice, human dignity and peace” (Associated Press III/Yahoo!News, May 13).

While the U.S. Defense Department is updating contingency planning for Iran, there is no formal military option yet, the Washington Times reported today.

“They don’t want anything like that to leak. It would upset Europe,” a Pentagon adviser said. “The generals in the building won’t talk about Iran. The message is diplomacy.”

A second adviser said that a senior policy-maker privately said, “I guess we’re going to have to learn to live with a nuclear Iran.”

“There is not much they can do. They are tied up in Iraq,” the adviser said. “I don’t think the president wants to stick his neck out again.”

The sources added that they are unaware of any internal meetings in which senior officials are advocating military action (Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times, May 15).