IAEA delays vote to report Iran to UN Security Council

By Mark Heinrich and Francois Murphy

VIENNA (Reuters) – The U.N. nuclear watchdog put off until
Saturday a vote to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council
over concerns it is seeking atomic bombs, as European Union
powers lobbied developing nations to back the measure.

Diplomats said a clear majority on the International Atomic
Energy Agency’s 35-nation board favored notifying the council
on Iran but the EU held up the vote to try to hammer out a
broad consensus with developing states without abstentions.

The delay arose from developing countries’ attempts since
Thursday to soften an EU-initiated resolution to report Iran
after the Islamic Republic threatened to curb U.N. inspections
of its atomic sites if sent to the Security Council.

An EU diplomat said later a deal with the 15 Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM) nations looked unlikely but the resolution would
be tabled anyway for a vote when the Vienna-board reconvened at
0900 GMT on Saturday.

He said the EU rejected NAM attempts to delete a clause
mandating that all IAEA investigative reports and resolutions,
including one in 2005 declaring Iran non-compliant with nuclear
non-proliferation safeguards, be passed to the Council.

“That was a no-no. Paragraph 2 is the holy grail for us,”
he told Reuters. “So in the end it looks like every country
will vote on its own conscience. We expect 25 ‘yes’ votes with
about 5-7 abstentions and three ‘no’s',” he said.

Another Western diplomat said that to remove Paragraph 2
would have surrendered to Iranian intimidation. “The threat (to
restrict inspections) is on everyone’s minds but we consider it
blackmail and if we give in to that, there’s no end to it.”

Diplomats from the EU trio of France, Germany and Britain
said the threat would not deter their efforts to induce the
Islamic Republic to come clean on what they suspect is military
involvement in nuclear work and to stop enrichment of uranium.

But NAM states argued Paragraph 2 could be construed as
ending IAEA oversight of Iran and opening the way to Security
Council sanctions before the IAEA concludes probes into Iran’s
atomic energy drive, which it concealed for 18 years until
2003.

SWEEPING IAEA REPORT PENDING

IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei is due to deliver a
sweeping report on Iran’s nuclear energy program at a regular
March 6 meeting of the agency’s board.

Iran says it wants only nuclear energy, not bombs, and has
a sovereign right to making uranium fuel on its own soil.

U.S. and EU leaders, aware that Russia, China and
developing states on the IAEA board want to avoid a showdown
with Iran, the world’s No. 4 oil exporter, explained that
reporting Tehran would not finish off diplomacy or trigger
early sanctions.

Russia and China endorsed the resolution in a deal between
the five permanent, veto-wielding Security Council powers last
week, removing a crippling barrier to IAEA board action on
Iran.

“Once this is on the agenda of the Security Council we
foresee a graduated approach to bring additional pressure on
the leadership in Tehran to achieve a negotiated settlement,”
U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte told reporters.

But Iran’s deputy nuclear negotiator warned that involving
the Security Council would also kill talks on a Russian offer
to defuse the crisis by enriching Iranian uranium to ensure the
Islamic Republic cannot divert it for bombs.

Iran says reporting it to the Security Council has no legal
basis since the IAEA has found no hard proof of bomb-making. It
says the move arises from a U.S. agenda to topple its Islamic
government, which has called for Israel’s destruction.

“The Iranian threat is serious and there’s fear we are
entering a risky period of polarization and confrontation that
will do no good for either side,” said a senior diplomat not
involved in the push to report Iran to the Council.

“If the IAEA loses snap inspection access, a vacuum will
ensure whereby others step in and make accusations the IAEA
cannot check out, and where could that lead? We are in need of
ideas on how to solve this peacefully.”

Analysts earlier reckoned on a majority of 25-30 on the
35-member IAEA board in favor of the resolution, with only a
few “no’s” from nations such as Syria, Venezuela and Cuba.

Russia and China approved the EU-sponsored resolution after
Tehran was given at least until March to cooperate fully with
U.N. investigators before the council takes any action.

But Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani warned ElBaradei in
writing that any recourse to the council “would be the final
blow to the confidence of Iran” in the IAEA.

“The agency’s monitoring would be extensively limited and
all peaceful nuclear activities (in Iran) being under voluntary
suspension would be resumed without any restriction,” he wrote.

Larijani called on Germany, France and Britain to restart
talks on a diplomatic solution. But they say Iran must first
reverse its move to resume atomic research and small-scale
enrichment of uranium, announced on January 9.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Paul Hughes in
Tehran)