International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday said that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s declared willingness to hold direct talks with Iran might encourage the Middle Eastern state to cooperate with a U.N. investigation of its nuclear activities, Reuters reported (see GSN, Nov. 11).
Iran has refused to provide key information that would help the agency investigate international suspicions that its ostensibly civilian nuclear program might be geared toward weapons development.
"If there is a direct dialogue between the United States and Iran, I think Iran will be more forthcoming with the agency," ElBaradei said. "(A) political opening will also convince Iran to work with us to solve remaining technical issues,” he added.
“That political component of the (Iran) issue requires in my view a direct dialogue with Iran and that's why I am very encouraged by President-elect Obama's statement that he is ready to engage Iran in a direct dialogue without preconditions. … I have a lot of hope if that is a new policy.”
"Right now we have a stalemate in the Iranian situation. … We are able to verify all their declared activities, we are able to verify their enrichment program, which is a good thing,” ElBaradei said. “But we are still not able to move forward on clarifying some of the outstanding issues related to alleged studies that could have some linkage to a possible military dimension."
"There is a lot of concern about Iran, not today but about Iran in future ... whether once they develop the technology, what are they going to use it for, whether they will go for nuclear weapons. … That is the concern shared by the [U.N.] Security Council," ElBaradei said (Mlcochova/Dokoupil, Reuters, Nov. 11).
U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns has traveled to Moscow to discuss the Iranian nuclear dispute with senior Russian officials, the Associated Press reported yesterday.
Burns is expected to discuss Iran tomorrow with other envoys for the five permanent Security Council member states and Germany. The six nations have offered Iran political and economic incentives intended to persuade it to halt uranium enrichment, an effort that can produce nuclear power plant fuel but also a key nuclear bomb ingredient.
Tomorrow’s talks are expected to address "where we are on the incentives side and what the prospects are for any movement by the Iranians," one State Department official said.
To date, Washington has failed to persuade Beijing or Moscow to support a fourth Security Council sanctions resolution targeting Iran for its controversial nuclear activities.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana last week called on the six world powers to hold new discussions with Iran on its nuclear program, the State Department official said, adding that such talks would face especially difficult obstacles before Obama takes office in January.
President George W. Bush yesterday extended a "national emergency" pertaining to Iran for one year, approving an order referring to the country’s "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States" (Matthew Lee, Associated Press I/Google News, Nov. 11).
As president, Obama would decide how aggressively to pursue new economic penalties against Iran, whether to offer the nation new benefits for nuclear cooperation, and whether to eliminate military action as an option for dealing with its nuclear sites, according to AP.
Iran now possesses much of the equipment and knowledge needed to build nuclear weapons, and it would only need to enrich a enough uranium to fuel a bomb, said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"The worst case for a nuclear device is 2009, but it could well be 2011 to 2015 before Iran gets there," Cordesman told AP yesterday. "The critical issue is when Iran could have an effective nuclear-armed missile force. That could easily take two to three years longer."
An Iranian nuclear-weapon development effort could be 80 percent complete, said David Kay, a former U.N. weapons inspector who led the Iraq Survey Group, the U.S.-led effort to search Iraq for weapons of mass destruction following the 2003 invasion.
Kay said the final phases of building a nuclear weapon are the hardest, and noted that Iran’s nuclear program is 20 years old and has not yet developed a bomb. The country could be between two and five years from such a milestone, he said (Barry Schweid, Associated Press II/Google News, Nov. 12).
Meanwhile, Turkey has expressed interest in mediating in the nuclear dispute during Obama’s presidential term, the New York Times reported yesterday.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that a letter sent to Obama last week by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was “a step that has to be made use of.”
"We are ready to be the mediator," Erdogan told the newspaper. "I do believe we could be very useful."
"We watch the relations between Iran and U.S. with great concern," he added. "We expect such issues to be resolved at the table. Wars are never solutions in this age" (Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, Nov. 12).
The head of Iran’s air force yesterday said his country has developed powerful measures to defend its airspace, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
"The air force has built up a solid barrier against any kind of strike, using up-to-date equipment as well as unique military tactics," Iranian state media quoted Brig. Gen. Ahmad Miqani as saying.
Miqani added that Iran’s military would remain alert to protect the country from possible strikes (Xinhua News Agency, Nov. 12).