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World nuclear panel refer iran to UN security council { February 4 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/international/middleeast/04cnd-iran.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/international/middleeast/04cnd-iran.html
February 4, 2006
World Nuclear Panel to Refer Iran to U.N. Security Council
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
VIENNA, Feb. 3 - In a move that could change the course of international diplomacy towards Iran, the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency approved a resolution on Saturday to report the country’s nuclear case to the United Nations Security Council.
The resolution, which passed 27-3 with five abstentions, opens the door for the first time to possible punitive action against Iran in the New York body over fears that it is developing a nuclear weapon.
Cuba, Syria and Venezuela voted against the resolution. Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa abstained.
The vote is the climax of a two-and-a-half year campaign by the Bush administration to convince the world that suspicions about Iran’s nuclear program are so serious that the issue must come before the Security Council for judgment.
It also signals the failure -- at least for now -- of the two-and-a-half year strategy of France, Britain and Germany that was based on the premise that Iran could be coaxed into freezing, perhaps indefinitely, key nuclear activities if the political, technological, economic and security rewards from the West were enticing enough.
In a concession to Russia and China which had initially resisted any Security Council involvement -- the resolution delayed for another month any action in the Security Council that could criticize or punish Iran.
That reflects the deadline Iran had been given since last November to meet I.A.E.A. demands before the agency presents its next formal assessment of Iran’s nuclear program in early March.
The resolution calls for the immediate suspension of all activities related to the enrichment of uranium, which can be used to make electricity or in making nuclear bombs.
It also recalls Iran’s “many failures and breaches of its obligations” under 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 of Iran’s nuclear activities.”
The resolution came at the end of a three-day emergency session of the decision-making board following Iran’s reopening last month of a small part of its nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz for what it called “research purposes.”
Even though Iran has yet to operate any of the machinery or process any uranium material there, its reopening violates a November 2004 agreement with France, Britain and Germany in which Iran voluntarily agreed to freeze its enrichment-related activities while the two sides negotiated a package of economic and political incentives for Iran.
The resolution was passed after the United States agreed late Friday to a clause indirectly criticizing Israel’s secret nuclear weapons status. Initially Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had rejected any compromise, arguing that Iran would use the clause for propaganda purposes to criticize Israel, which unlike Iran is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and suffers no consequences as a nuclear power, diplomats in Vienna and American officials said.
But even the United States’ closest European allies demanded the clause, which had been demanded by Egypt and also enjoyed the support of Russia and China. Isolated, the United States backed down.
The clause stated that, “A solution to the Iranian issue would contribute to global nonproliferation efforts and to realizing the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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