UN Nuclear Chief Says Iran Crisis Must Be Defused

NUKEWARS

UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

Kuwait Says US Cannot Use Bases For Any Iran Strike
Kuwait City (AFP) June 11 - Kuwait, a staunch US ally, said on Monday it would not allow the United States to use its territory as a launch-pad for any attack on Iran over its nuclear programme. "The United States did not ask (to use Kuwaiti military facilities for any attack) and even if it did, we will not allow anybody to use our territory," defence and interior minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah told reporters. Kuwait served as the launch-pad for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and remains the main staging point for US-led troops in the country. Around 15,000 US troops are stationed at several bases in the emirate. On Sunday, visiting Iranian parliament speaker Gholam Ali Hadad Adel said Tehran would hit US military bases in Gulf states if they were used in an attack on his country. "If this actually happens, we will be forced to defend ourselves... We will target those bases or points," he said. Washington has always said it wants to resolve the nuclear crisis through diplomacy, but has never ruled out using military action to bring Tehran to heel. Iran consistently denies it is trying to build nuclear weapons and says it merely wants to generate energy.

by Staff Writers
Vienna (AFP) Jun 12, 2007
UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Monday that the "brewing confrontation" with Iran over its atomic ambitions "must be defused," even as Tehran failed to give sensitive information it had promised. A meeting Monday between ElBaradei and a senior Iranian negotiator was cancelled since "the Iranians didn't want to talk substance at this point" on questions about possibly weapons-related work in a long-running investigation by the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a diplomat said.

Iranian negotiators "no longer have the authority to discuss any issue," a second diplomat said.

The diplomat said the Iranians were backing off from a pledge their top negotiator Ali Larijani made May 31 to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to talk to the IAEA on "information access and cooperation."

The diplomat said hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was apparently cutting off the more moderate stance favoured by Larijani. Ahmadinejad has warned it is "too late" to stop Iran's nuclear programme,

The United States claims that a nuclear programme Iran says is a peaceful effort to generate electricity is in fact a cover for developing nuclear weapons.

Washington says it wants a diplomatic solution but has not ruled out a military intervention and has placed sizeable naval forces in the Gulf.

ElBaradei told an IAEA meeting here: "I am increasingly disturbed by the current stalemate and the brewing confrontation -- a stalemate that urgently needs to be broken, and a confrontation that must be defused."

The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors began Monday in Vienna a week-long meeting that could bring Tehran one step closer to a third round of UN sanctions against its nuclear programme.

ElBaradei said "dialogue and diplomacy are ultimately the only way to achieve the negotiated solution foreseen in the relevant Security Council resolutions," according to a copy of his speech made available to the press.

The UN Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions to get Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, which makes nuclear reactor fuel but also atom bomb material, and to provide information about suspect nuclear activities.

But, said ElBaradei: "The facts on the ground indicate that Iran continues steadily to perfect its knowledge relevant to enrichment, and to expand the capacity of its enrichment facility" in Natanz.

Iran is also continuing "with the construction of its heavy water reactor at Arak," which can produce plutonium, like enriched uranium a potential bomb material, and blocking "our right to re-verify design information at Arak," ElBaradei said.

This leaves the IAEA unable "to make any progress in its efforts to resolve outstanding issues relevant to the nature and scope of Iran's nuclear programme," ElBaradei said.

The United States expects intense diplomacy in coming weeks for plans to step up UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, the State Department said Monday.

US Undersecretary of State Nick Burns would raise the Iranian nuclear issue with his counterparts from Germany, Britain, France and Italy at a meeting in Paris this week, a spokesman said.

Iran, which is still allowing safeguards inspections at Natanz, strove Monday to soften the diplomacy against it.

Senior Iranian nuclear negotiator Javad Vaidi met at the Austrian foreign ministry in Vienna with Robert Cooper, a top aide to Solana.

But a diplomat said the IAEA had cancelled meetings for Vaidi with ElBaradei and his chief safeguards inspector Olli Heinonen.

Cooper and Vaidi told reporters their main focus was to prepare another meeting of Larijani and Solana.

Vaidi described his almost five-hour meeting with Cooper as "kind of constructive ... but you cannot expect a huge miracle."

ElBaradei is to report this week that Iran is expanding uranium enrichment and failing to come forth with information required to settle outstanding questions about such issues as documents Iran has for making uranium metal hemispheres used in atom bombs, according to a copy of the report.

Source: Agence France-Presse

Email This Article

NUKEWARS

Russia Agrees To Help End North Korea Banking Row

Washington (AFP) June 11, 2007
Russia has agreed to help the United States break the impasse over a long-running banking dispute blocking North Korea's nuclear disarmament, the US Treasury said Monday. Moscow reportedly granted a US request for a private Russian bank to accept purportedly illicit North Korean funds currently frozen in Macau's Banco Delta Asia (BDA) before they are moved to Pyongyang.

ENERGY TECH Green Coffins Go Upmarket At British Funeral Parlors Researchers Examine Carbon Capture And Storage To Combat Global Warming Tennessee Residents Favor Expanded Wind Energy New Green Pyre To Cool Planet While Burning The Dead Of India	CIVIL NUCLEAR Wyle And ARES Corporation Sign Teaming Agreement To Pursue Nuclear Energy Industry Business NGO Warns Of Explosion Risk At Russian Nuclear Storage US Sees Technical Delay In India Nuclear Pact US Positive On Clinching India Nuclear Accord
BLUE SKY AIRS Global Map Of Carbon Dioxide From Space Widespread Twilight Zone Detected Around Clouds Rand Says Further Study Warranted On Save The World Air Technology Noxious Lightning	WOOD PILE Woods Hole Research Center Scientists Study Impacts Of Industrial Logging In Central Africa Zimbabwe Forests Under Threat While Cambodia Censors Logging Report Uganda Shelves Plan To Convert Rainforest Indonesia's Crackdown On Illegal Logging Under Fire
FARM NEWS A Crop Containment Strategy For GM Farms Study Predicts Grim Future For European Seas Compost Reduces P Factor In Broccoli, Eggplant, Cabbage Trial Wild Relatives Sweeten Breeding Program	CAR TECH GM Wants To Drive Green But Easy On The Rules PSEG To Replace 1300 Vehicles with Hybrids To Help Curb Carbon Emissions In New Jersey Toyota Taken To Task In Britain For Prius Advert GM To Speed Up Development Of Electric Vehicles
AEROSPACE Airlines Pledge Emissions Cuts But Warn EU Curbs Could Jeopardise Sector Sandia And Boeing Collaborate To Develop Aircraft Fuel Cell Applications Australia Fears Jet Flight Guilt Could Hit Tourism Nondestructive Testing Keeps Bagram Aircraft Flying	NUCLEAR SPACE Could NASA Get To Pluto Faster? Space Expert Says Yes - By Thinking Nuclear NASA plans to send new robot to Jupiter Los Alamos Hopes To Lead New Era Of Nuclear Space Tranportion With Jovian Mission Boeing Selects Leader for Nuclear Space Systems Program

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement