Doug Lorimer
In his opening remarks to the meeting of the board of governors of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on September 13, IAEA director-general Mohammed ElBaradei said that Iran had made "some progress" in accounting for small traces of highly enriched uranium found by UN inspectors at Iranian nuclear facilities. He added, "it appears plausible that this HEU contamination may not have resulted from enrichment of uranium by Iran at these locations".
ElBaradei also told the IAEA board of governors that it was of "serious concern" that US ally South Korea had secretly enriched uranium to bomb-grade levels four years ago. IAEA inspectors reported that the method utilised in South Korea to enrich uranium had no civilian application and was not used in any nuclear energy programs. ElBaradei noted that the South Korean enrichment activities were in violation of the IAEA safeguard agreement.
According to the September 12 Washington Post: "The IAEA, which has suspected South Korea of violating the non-proliferation treaty for six years, confronted the Seoul government last December. Several months later, diplomats said, South Korea began to acknowledge the work. Publicly, officials in Seoul said the experiments were one-time efforts by scientists working on their own. But diplomats challenged those assertions and revealed over the weekend that the Seoul government officially and repeatedly blocked IAEA inspections months after the experiments in 2000 and told the IAEA false cover stories...
"During an IAEA inspection last week, South Korean officials could not produce documentation or several scientists who were involved in the work, the diplomats said. That portrayal differs significantly from those offered by US officials who have repeatedly praised South Korea for coming clean voluntarily and co-operating with the IAEA."
While ignoring Seoul's violations of its international nuclear commitments, US officials in Vienna continued to insist that the HEU traces found in Iran are evidence that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program.
In its drive to lay the groundwork for a future Iraq-style invasion of oil-rich Iran, Washington has been pushing for the 35-member IAEA board of governors to refer Iran's nuclear energy program to the UN Security Council for possible international sanctions. However, the embarrassing South Korean revelations have forced US officials to temporarily retreat to demanding that a "deadline" be set for Iran to comply with a series of demands.
According to a September 14 Voice of America report, US officials had found unacceptable a draft resolution on Iran's nuclear program being circulated among the IAEA board members by British, French and German diplomats. VoA reported that the draft "urges Iran to provide immediate access to all facilities for inspection and to reconsider construction work on a heavy water reactor that could produce bomb-grade nuclear material". It also "calls on Iran to suspend immediately all activities connected with reprocessing and uranium enrichment".
Associated Press reported on September 13 that US officials were proposing changes to the draft resolution, including that it demand Iran provide "full information" about alleged past illegal nuclear activities (Iran denies that it has engaged in any) and that Iran cease "immediately and fully" uranium enrichment and all related activities.
On July 30, Tehran announced plans to begin enrichment processing of 40 tonnes of uranium, which Washington claims will be used to make five nuclear bombs. Uranium enrichment, however, is also necessary for producing nuclear fuel for electricity generation.
Hossein Mousavian, Iran's chief IAEA delegate, told AP on September 14 that his country had a legitimate right to enrich uranium under the non-proliferation treaty.
Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's former delegate to the IAEA, told AP on September 2 that the equipment being used in Iran's Natanz enrichment plant does not have the capacity to enrich uranium to a grade that could be used for nuclear weapons. He also noted that in addition to Iran's agreement to allow unannounced IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities, IAEA cameras record activity in the plant 24 hours a day.
From Green Left Weekly, September 22, 2004.
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