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A new start on Iran

Last week’s agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency on a work plan for the modalities of resolving the few questions that remain about the Islamic Republic’s past nuclear activities is a welcome development. It opens the way for a quick and peaceful resolution of the crisis. The IAEA has identified three sets of issues that need clarification. The first is the scope and extent of Iranian research on the P-2 centrifuge, whose design and key components were allegedly purchased from the clandestine nuclear ring run by the disgraced Pakistani scientist, A.Q. Khan. Linked to this is the yet-to-be established source of enriched uranium contamination found at a specific location. Secondly, there are a few issues carried over from Iran’s past experiments with plutonium that need clearing up. Thirdly, the agency is seeking clarifications about the possible existence of other research projects, based on Iran’s possession of a document on the hemispherical casting of uranium as well as ‘intelligence inputs’ from the United States. Until now, the IAEA has accused the Iranians of not extending full cooperation. On its part, Iran says it has been doing all it can. Thanks to last week’s agreement, the two sides will meet in Tehran early next month to chalk out a step-by-step action plan for the speedy resolution of these issues.

For this plan to work, three things must happen. First, Tehran must go flat out to cooperate with IAEA inspectors. Secondly, the IAEA must recognise that the inspection process cannot be prolonged indefinitely and that if the Iranians say, for instance, that they did no substantive work on the P-2, the onus is on the agency to controvert that claim rather than asking Tehran to prove a negative. Thirdly, the U.S. must allow this process to work; it must not seek to derail it by seeking tougher sanctions or threatening Iran with military action. Unfortunately, the third condition is the hardest to fulfil. The Bush administration is not particularly bothered about the three questions remaining from Iran’s previous nuclear activities. Its obsessive objection is to the current Iranian fuel enrichment programme. Indeed, if the IAEA were to pronounce — at the end of the work plan — that it is satisfied with Iran’s explanations about the past, the U.S. could find itself in the awkward position of seeking to target Tehran solely for exercising its legitimate rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Recent reports from Washington that the pendulum within the Bush administration has once again swung in the direction of military action are a cause for concern. The international community must be on guard.

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