The UN nuclear agency expressed "serious concern" on Thursday about Iran's nuclear program, and Iran responded that it would not curtail the program.
After two days of back-room lobbying and discussions, the 35 countries represented on the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear monitoring agency, agreed by consensus on a resolution that "urges Iran to re-establish full suspension of all enrichment-related activities."
The board also set a Sept. 3 deadline for the agency's director-general, Mohamed ElBaradei, to report on whether Iran was carrying out the terms of the resolution.
Taken together, the elements in the board's statement fell short of what the US and its European partners had hoped for only a week or so ago.
At that time, Britain, France and Germany joined together in warning Iran that if it resumed uranium activities, they would seek immediate support at the nuclear agency's board for referring the issue to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
Western diplomats said, however, that they were unable to get board approval for such an action after Iran went ahead and resumed its uranium conversion. Iran did so while inviting international inspections to prove that it was not making fuel for weapons.
In effect, these diplomats said, they did not have the votes to get a consensus for a Security Council referral and had to settle for yet another warning to Iran and yet another deadline by which to comply.
Despite this disappointment, US President George W. Bush said in Crawford, Texas, that the board of the atomic agency had taken "a positive first step."
"As you know, there will be a report back after a period of time and we look forward to hearing what the report says," he said, adding that "the world is coalescing" around the demand that Iran not have "the means and the wherewithal" to make nuclear weapons.
It was only shortly after the IAEA issued its statement that Iran responded negatively.
The Iranian representative at the talks, Cyrus Nasseri, called the resolution "absurd."
He told the board members gathered in the UN complex, not far from the Danube River, that Iran would not suspend its uranium conversion activities and that it also questioned the authority of the agency to tell it to stop.
"Iran will not bend," Nasseri said. "Iran will be a nuclear fuel producer and supplier within a decade."
He referred to US suspicions that Iran plans to make nuclear arms as raising a sense of "deja vu."
"Iran is not Iraq," he said. "And the United States is not that self-appointed policeman of the world anymore."
Iran contends that its nuclear activities are for energy purposes, not for nuclear arms. Tehran had agreed to suspend its nuclear activities temporarily while it engaged in negotiations with Britain, France and Germany over the program.
Earlier this month, the European nations offered a package of assistance in return for permanent suspension of the nuclear program.
Iran rejected the offer, saying it did not meet even minimum expectations.
It said it would remove seals and resume uranium conversion at its Isfahan plant, the first step in the nuclear fuel production process.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
RSS