IAEA chief not hopeful on Tehran nuclear talks

IAEA chief not hopeful on Tehran nuclear talks
Gulf Times - 12 January, 2013

The UN nuclear agency chief said yesterday he was not optimistic about talks with Iran next week on getting access to a military base Western powers suspect has been used for atom bomb-related work.

The comments by Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), contrasted with a more upbeat assessment given by the Vienna-based UN agency after a meeting with Iranian officials last month.

The IAEA, whose mission it is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the world, has been trying for a year to negotiate a so-called structured approach with Iran that would give it access to sites, officials and documents.

The IAEA’s priority is to visit the Parchin military facility southeast of Tehran, where the agency suspects explosives tests relevant for nuclear weapons may have taken place, perhaps a decade ago. Tehran denies this.

“The outlook is not bright,” Amano said in Tokyo, referring to the negotiations to be held in Tehran on Wednesday on the framework accord the IAEA hopes will enable it to quickly resume its stalled investigation into suspected atom bomb research.

The talks between the IAEA and Iran are separate from, but linked to, broader diplomacy by six world powers to resolve the nuclear row with Iran before it leads to a Middle East war, feared because of Israeli threats to bomb Iranian nuclear sites.

Western powers say Iran is trying to develop the capability to make atomic weapons, a charge the Islamic Republic rejects.

Both the IAEA and Tehran have said progress was achieved at the December meeting, without giving details.

However, Amano said in Japanese comments translated into English: “Talks with Iran don’t proceed in a linear way. It’s one step forward, two or three steps back ... So we can’t say we have an optimistic outlook” for the January 16 meeting.

Western diplomats say Iran has worked for the past year to cleanse Parchin of any evidence of illicit activities, but Amano said late last year an IAEA visit would still be useful.

The IAEA said after last month’s talks in Tehran it expected a deal could be completed in January and swiftly implemented.

But Western diplomats in Vienna later said stumbling blocks remained, including Iran’s demand for access to intelligence documents that form part of the basis for the IAEA’s concerns.

Even if a deal is reached, the diplomats said, it remained to be seen how it would be carried out. Western officials have often accused Iran of stonewalling IAEA investigations.

“An agreement is a good first step, but implementation is the most important part,” one Western envoy said yesterday.

Iran’s refusal to curb nuclear activity with dual civilian and military applications, and its lack of openness with the IAEA, have drawn tough Western punitive measures and a threat of pre-emptive military strikes by its arch-adversary Israel.

Iran, world powers set meeting date: report

World powers will meet Iranian top representatives to discuss the Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme in Istanbul at the end of January, a Russian official said yesterday.

Iran and the so-called “P5+1” nations—the five permanent UN Security Council members along with Germany—have not all met since a June session in Moscow.

But an unnamed Russian source told the state RIA Novosti agency that the next meeting has been provisionally scheduled for the end of the month in Istanbul—host of the first such talks last April. The source did not name a specific date or say when one might be announced.

However, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov—Russia’s pointman at the talks and most senior Iran expert—expressed frustration that an exact date had not been fixed. “We have had situations in the past when we had trouble agreeing a time and place, and we have one now today,” Interfax quoted Ryabkov as saying.

He stressed that Moscow wanted to see the momentum of talks continue “without significant delays.” Ryabkov gave no indication whether it was Iran or Catherine Ashton—the EU foreign affairs chief and main Western representative at the negotiations—who had the most serious reservations about new talks.

Three prior “P5+1” meetings have been held with Iran at the most senior level envisioned for the Istanbul session. None has produced a compromise that sees the powers accept Iran’s right to enrich uranium in exchange for its provision of access to closed nuclear facilities and its promise not to make higher-grade material.

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