U.N. Powers Aim to Defuse Iranian Atomic Standoff

Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010

The five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany were set today to inform Iran of their hope to promptly resolve a long-running dispute over the Middle Eastern nation's disputed nuclear work, Reuters reported (see GSN, Sept. 21).

(Sep. 22) - Workers last month move nuclear fuel into the reactor building of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. Six world powers were today expected to call on Iran to join new talks over its disputed atomic policies (Getty Images).

"Our objective continues to be a comprehensive long-term negotiated solution which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," says a draft statement due to be made public following talks today in New York between delegates from the six countries (Andrew Quinn, Reuters I, Sept. 22).
"We reaffirmed our determination and commitment to seek an early negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue and focused our discussion on further practical steps to achieve it at an early date," Agence France-Presse quoted the document as saying.
The statement also refers to new economic penalties against Iran, which included a fourth U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution and unilateral measures enacted by the European Union and a number of countries in recent months.
"We confirmed the need for Iran to comply with the U.N. Security Council, and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Board of Governors requirements," the document says. Iran has rebuffed Security Council calls to halt uranium enrichment -- a process that can produce civilian fuel as well as nuclear bomb material -- and stonewalled an IAEA probe of its past nuclear work. The nation has maintained its atomic ambitions are strictly peaceful.
"Iran has not removed doubts" over its nuclear intentions, and further defiance would place the nation at risk of additional "isolation and the pursuit of new sanctions," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
"If Iran is ready for serious discussions, all they have to do is let us know," U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told AFP by e-mail (Lachlan Carmichael, Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Sept. 22).
The world powers' statement also welcomes new negotiations with Iran on a potential exchange of Iranian uranium for higher-enriched material to fuel a medical isotope production reactor in Tehran, Reuters reported. The International Atomic Energy Agency last year proposed exchanging a quantity of Iranian low-enriched uranium for material enriched to 20 percent.
More at link