Diplomacy will pay dividends with Iran, says top US diplomat

Abu Dhabi: The US's troubled position in Iraq and its calls to the White House to seek help from Iran and Syria to stabilise the country have obliged US officials to soften their tone against Tehran.

Once tagged as part of the axis of evil by President George W. Bush, the US stance against Iran has softened enough to let diplomacy work instead of force.

A senior US diplomat told Gulf News on Tuesday that tough diplomacy was the only way to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis and to convince leaders in Tehran to move from the current "negative path" to "a positive path".

In an exclusive interview with Ambassador Gregory Schulte, US Permanent Representative to the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, he said the US believes that diplomacy will pay dividends in the tussle with Iran.

"We [the US] expect to win in the end, because the world is united with us against Iran's suspect nuclear programme."

Despite his confident tone Schulte said the worse case scenario would be if Iran acquired nuclear military technology and developed vehicles to deliver them.

"No one can predict what Iran might do if it acquired nuclear military technology....... The region will become dangerous, not only because of Iran becoming a nuclear power, but also because the success of Iran might attract other countries and terrorist organisations to acquire the technology and threaten the stability in the world," he said.

He said Iran was pursuing two paths to nuclear technology. While preparing Arak for the development of plutonium, they are setting their centrifugal reactors to handle uranium. He added the heavy-water reactor in Arak was definitely not necessary to conduct experiments on the peaceful use of nuclear power.

Next week, he said Mohammad Al Baradei, Director-General of IAEA, would submit a new report on Iran's nuclear programme, which would reflect Iran's failure to provide full transparency and meet international requirements.

"The world requested Iran to suspend its nuclear work and offer unconditional access to information and facilities," he said.

He said 17 countries around the world with nuclear power were buying their fuel on the market instead of making the expensive and unnecessary investment in uranium enrichment.

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have offered to back the international market with legally-binding assurances of fuel supply. But Iran's leaders have shown no interest.

He said the US policy to contain Iran's ambitions to become a nuclear power and change its path was by making it more difficult for Iran to continue its programme and by making it clear to Tehran's leaders the world will not accept the continuation of the programme. He said Iranian leaders could not count on negotiation to buy more time.

"The IAEA has been working on this issue for almost three years without genuine progress," Schulte said.

Schulte said that the current American administration had always advocated a Middle East free of nuclear arsenals. He said the US was not against the use of nuclear power for peaceful applications.