Steve Quayle News Alerts

November 19, 2003

BRUSSELS Europe will resist an American effort to bring accusations that Iran has developed nuclear weapons before the UN Security Council, hoping to lure Tehran into compliance with negotiations and incentives, European officials said Tuesday.
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The stand was a rebuff to Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, who met with European foreign ministers and had sought a forceful response to a UN report that Powell had said proved that Iran had been flouting the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
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The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna is scheduled to take up a resolution this week by France, Germany and Britain that seeks to compel Iran to halt the enrichment and reprocessing of uranium and holds out the lure of future cooperation with the three countries, including sharing nuclear technology for civilian use.
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Javier Solana, the European Union's top diplomat, said Europe would follow a policy of constructive engagement toward Iran, aimed at abandoning materials that could be used to produce weapons. European officials agreed Tuesday to demand that Iran sign a nonproliferation clause in any future treaties with them.
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Solana acknowledged that the UN nuclear watchdog agency's report, drafted by Mohamed El Baradei, the agency's chief, showed that Tehran's past behavior was not compatible with its nonproliferation pledge. But he and European colleagues said Iraq had shown a new willingness to cooperate with them. Earlier this week, Solana said he believed that Iranian officials had been honest in their most recent disclosures.
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The objective we have in common between Europe and the United States, he said is to prevent Iran from going nuclear
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Powell, appearing at a news conference Tuesday, voiced doubts about whether the European approach was strong enough.
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Speaking later Tuesday on a flight to London, the secretary said the last draft he had seen lacked trigger mechanism to punish Iran for noncompliance. He said Baradei concurred with him that the resolution was inadequate to the report he had prepared
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Bush administration officials have hewed to a tougher line toward Iran, following Baradei's report, which concluded that despite transgressions in the past, there is no evidence that Iran is actively pursuing nuclear weapons. John Bolton, an under secretary of state who is responsible for nonproliferation, declared that conclusion simply impossible to believe
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An American official, who called the report disappointing said Tuesday that the administration was still considering bringing the Iranian matter before the Security Council, which has the power to authorize sanctions or even military action. Officials let slip a deadline last month to involve the Security Council after the European initiative appeared to have made progress.
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The administration has not settled on its strategy, the diplomat said, and it may yield in the short term to the European effort. The initiative, which became public in September, was the first diplomatic effort undertaken by the European ministers since the divisive battles over the Iraq war.
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Powell acknowledged that they had made some progress in getting Iran moving in the right direction now One European diplomat said some of the ministers were anxious to avoid another Iraq-style showdown at the United Nations. The diplomat said there was no appetite yet for a confrontation with Iran, when diplomacy still might bear fruit.
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You will see Europeans united around 'Let's maintain this issue in Vienna the diplomat said, adding that it would probably create more problems than solve them by taking it to the UN Security Council
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In addition, the Bush administration faced some lingering skepticism about its assertions about secret weapons, given its inability to produce them in Iraq, despite Washington's assertion that the weapons posed a grave risk to international securityEverybody learned a lot of lessons" in Iraq, the European diplomat said.
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Powell is with President George W. Bush for a state visit in Britain.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/118189.html