Word: iaea
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...surprising. What may be the decisive phase of the West's diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis over Iran's nuclear program has arrived. This week, Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is due to report to the United Nations whether Iran has complied with the IAEA's demands for more information about a program that Tehran insists is for peaceful purposes only. Expecting continued intransigence from Iran, the U.S. and Europe are poised to go to the U.N. Security Council for yet another round of sanctions before the end of the year, says the spokeswoman...
...their departure from his coalition would have forced snap elections 18 months early. If he had been counting on convincing the Left to drop its opposition to the deal at the eleventh hour, he has badly miscalculated. Communist demands that the government refrain from negotiating nuclear safeguards with the IAEA - the next phase of implementing the deal - have prevailed, and it is the government that appears to have been forced to back down at the eleventh hour...
...merely tactical: Russia agrees that Iran has, in some of its activities, failed to meet the transparency requirements of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is the basis for the Security Council demand that it suspend enrichment until it can clear up questions raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and restore confidence in its intentions. But the IAEA and Tehran have agreed to a "work plan" and timetable for Iran to resolve the outstanding questions, which is why further U.N. action has been tabled pending the outcome of that process...
...with French President Nicolas Sarkozy - the most energetic European supporter of the U.S. position - that there is no evidence to suggest Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. That assessment may put him at odds with Washington, but it is, in fact, consistent with the findings of the IAEA. The difference hinges over what defines a nuclear weapons program. Last week, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner wrote to his European colleagues urging support for tougher sanctions. "Time is against us," Kouchner warned, "because each day Iran gets closer to mastering enrichment technology, in other words to having...
...facto military nuclear capacity"; it simply gives Iran an important piece of nuclear infrastructure that is allowed under the NPT but could, if Iran pulled out of the NPT, be used to create weapons-grade materiel. While the demand that Iran suspend enrichment until it has answered the IAEA's questions enjoys broad support, the demand that Iran be denied the right to enrichment because it is a regime not trusted by the West is a much tougher sell. And Russia isn't necessarily buying...