The UN atomic agency’s board on Friday passed a resolution condemning Iran’s nuclear activities after the watchdog’s damning recent report, but stopped short of setting Tehran a deadline to comply.
The text, proposed at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and 12 others, also drew the line at reporting Iran to New York.
Iran said it would not attend an IAEA forum next week on ridding the Middle East of nuclear weapons and that the resolution would only strengthen its resolve to press ahead with its “peaceful” nuclear program.
The resolution said it was “essential for Iran and the Agency to intensify their dialogue” and calls on Tehran “to comply fully and without delay with its obligations under relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council.”
A total of 32 countries on the 35-nation IAEA board of governors voted in favor, with Indonesia abstaining and Cuba and Ecuador voting against, diplomats said.
To assuage Chinese and Russian misgivings, the resolution has no timeframe for Iran to comply, calling instead for IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano to report to the board in March on Tehran’s “implementation of this resolution.”
Last week, the IAEA came the closest yet to accusing Iran outright of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, in a report immediately rejected by Tehran republic as “baseless.”
US Ambassador to the IAEA Glyn Davies told the board on Friday that the “watershed report ... leaves little doubt that Iran, at the very least, wants to position itself for a nuclear weapons capacity.”
He rejected criticism that the resolution was too weak.
“This resolution does the job,” Davies told reporters. “It gives us the tools we need to get the job done.”
“The United States will continue this pressure until Iran chooses to depart from its current path of international isolation, both in concert with our partners as well as unilaterally,” a White House statement said.
Britain, France and Germany said in a joint statement they were “gravely concerned” by the report, saying it “paints a very disturbing picture ... The international community cannot simply return to business as usual.”
However, Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh said it was “unprofessional, unbalanced, illegal and politicized” and has “deeply ruined the worldwide reputation of the Agency as a technical competent authority.”
“Many parliamentarians ask me when they see me what the benefit is of being in the IAEA ... This is a legitimate question,” he told reporters. “But the fact is Iran is in the IAEA to put the IAEA on the right track and prevent what the US wants to dictate to the IAEA. That is the reason I am here.”
After the IAEA resolution, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined international demands for Iran to lift suspicions that it may be seeking a nuclear bomb.
“The secretary-general remains deeply concerned about unresolved issues regarding the Iranian nuclear program, including those which need to be clarified to exclude possible military dimensions,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said.
Ban called on Tehran to cooperate “without delay” with the IAEA’s proposal to send a high-level team to Iran.
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