sarettah
09-10-2003, 07:01 AM
http://www.swisspolitics.org/en/news/index...news_id=4222975 (http://www.swisspolitics.org/en/news/index.php?section=int&page=news_inhalt&news_id=4222975)
Iran faces nuke deadline
10.09.2003 - 12:30
By Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States and four allies are pushing the U.N. nuclear watchdog to approve a resolution that will give Tehran until October 31 to prove it has no covert nuclear weapons programme.
Japan, Britain, France and Germany joined forces with Washington by co-sponsoring a draft that demanded Iran demonstrate full compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which the United States says Tehran has
violated.
The toughly-worded draft resolution, circulated at a closed-door meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation Board of Governors, also called on Iran to "suspend all further uranium enrichment activities".
Iran's foreign minister warned that the Islamic republic would "review" cooperation with the U.N. watchdog body if its governing board came down too hard on Tehran.
IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei did not say if he backed the idea of a last-chance deadline for Iran, though he said Tehran should quickly answer the IAEA's many outstanding questions about its nuclear programme.
"Everybody agrees that there is important work (to be done) that has to do with non-proliferation concerns, and that work has to be brought to a closure without delay," ElBaradei told reporters before the third day of meetings began on Wednesday.
The IAEA said in an August 26 report that inspectors found traces of weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium at an enrichment facility at Natanz, arousing suspicions that Iran might have been secretly purifying uranium for use in nuclear
weapons.
Washington, which last year listed Iran, North Korea and pre-war Iraq as members of an "axis of evil" whose weapons projects threatened world peace, says Tehran's nuclear programme is a front for developing an atomic bomb.
Iran faces nuke deadline
10.09.2003 - 12:30
By Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States and four allies are pushing the U.N. nuclear watchdog to approve a resolution that will give Tehran until October 31 to prove it has no covert nuclear weapons programme.
Japan, Britain, France and Germany joined forces with Washington by co-sponsoring a draft that demanded Iran demonstrate full compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which the United States says Tehran has
violated.
The toughly-worded draft resolution, circulated at a closed-door meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation Board of Governors, also called on Iran to "suspend all further uranium enrichment activities".
Iran's foreign minister warned that the Islamic republic would "review" cooperation with the U.N. watchdog body if its governing board came down too hard on Tehran.
IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei did not say if he backed the idea of a last-chance deadline for Iran, though he said Tehran should quickly answer the IAEA's many outstanding questions about its nuclear programme.
"Everybody agrees that there is important work (to be done) that has to do with non-proliferation concerns, and that work has to be brought to a closure without delay," ElBaradei told reporters before the third day of meetings began on Wednesday.
The IAEA said in an August 26 report that inspectors found traces of weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium at an enrichment facility at Natanz, arousing suspicions that Iran might have been secretly purifying uranium for use in nuclear
weapons.
Washington, which last year listed Iran, North Korea and pre-war Iraq as members of an "axis of evil" whose weapons projects threatened world peace, says Tehran's nuclear programme is a front for developing an atomic bomb.