Region | Iran
El Baradei to defend Iran at IAEA meet
Whether a new IAEA report on Iran's compliance with a pledge to clarify past secret nuclear work to the IAEA is cause for new hope or further skepticism will be debated by the agency's 35-nation Board of Governors.
- Agencies
- Published: 08:31 November 22, 2007
Vienna: The UN nuclear watchdog chief is set to urge full backing for an Iran transparency plan at an agency governors meeting on Thursday after Western powers said Tehran must do more to allay fears about its atomic agenda.
Whether a new International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran's compliance with a pledge to clarify past secret nuclear work to the IAEA is cause for new hope or further skepticism will be debated by the agency's 35-nation Board of Governors.
It will be a matter of interpretation. Western board members will dwell on Iran's defiant campaign to enrich uranium despite the transparency plan, diplomats said, while developing nations will highlight Iranian steps towards openness and warn against rising Western pressure they feel could undo the process.
The West fears Iran is covertly trying to build atom bombs. Iran says it wants only to produce electricity from uranium enrichment.
IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei, concerned by US-led criticism of the plan's limitations and resolve to isolate Iran with harsher sanctions, is likely to stress the plan is on track and warrants full support, a UN official said.
"He's likely to say that whatever the imperfections, the plan is proceeding according to schedule and the timeline to resolve outstanding questions by around the end of the year remains realistic," the official told Reuters.
He said Iran had provided more information in two months, clarifying how it obtained whatever it needed to build enrichment centrifuges from a black market run by the father of Pakistan's atom bomb, than it had in two years of stonewalling.
The IAEA report said Iran was still preventing inspector movements aimed at checking the nature and scope of its current enrichment-related activity.
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