Word: uranium
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This week's emergency meeting in Vienna of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, comes as Iran has moved to resume uranium enrichment activity, ending its agreement with three European countries to desist from such activity. The IAEA meeting has been billed as a step towards UN sanctions against Iran...
...member states of the IAEA board are debating a resolution urging Iran to halt the uranium conversion activities it re-started this week. They are divided over the wording of the resolution, particularly over any threats to enforce it, although everyone seems agreed on the need to warn Iran against continuing on its present path. If Iran keeps on converting yellowcake uranium to gas, the matter may be referred to the UN Security Council, which has the authority to order Iran to suspend its enrichment activities and impose sanctions. That decision won't come for several weeks though...
...Since the election of its new hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran has become increasingly strident over its nuclear ambitions. Ahmadinejad dismissed the European offer as an 'insult,' precisely because it required Iran to renounce the right it enjoys under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to enrich uranium for energy purposes. Tehran's action this week ended its year-long voluntary suspension of uranium conversion activities. Its top representative to the IAEA was combative yesterday, saying that on the anniversary of the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki, the U.S. was in "no position whatsoever to preach to anyone about what they should...
...Although the NPT gives Iran the right to enrich uranium for energy purposes, the Europeans and the U.S. believe Tehran forfeited that right by concealing part of its nuclear program from IAEA scrutiny for two decades. Although the U.S. was initially skeptical of Europe's diplomatic approach, it subsequently backed that effort. And now, Britain, France and Germany are clearly losing patience with Iran. Ahmadinejad has said he wants negotiations to continue ?without preconditions,? but if Iran insists on continuing its conversion work the talks will likely...
...Once the fourth round got under way, it quickly became apparent that Pyongyang's position had not changed. Denuclearization, in any normal meaning of the term, was not going to be on the agenda. Never mind the secret uranium program that Pyongyang still publicly avers is nonexistent. North Korea says it will not sign a joint statement endorsing eventual denuclearization because it wishes to preserve the option of peaceful nuclear-power development. Instead, the North has tried to turn the talks into an international forum on U.S. military disengagement from South Korea. Although Washington has not based nuclear weapons...