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UN atomic agency meets:
Iran deliberating new nuclear proposal
By Michael Adler
AFP
VIENNA
Petroleumworld.com 06 12 06The UN nuclear watchdog meets in Vienna Monday with the world waiting to see if Iran accepts an international offer to rein in its nuclear program.
A vigorous debate but no resolution or major initiative is expected at the regular meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors, which is expected to run several days and discuss routine matters besides an Iranian nuclear program that has raised fears Tehran seeks the bomb.
"The decision to be made is in Tehran, not at the board," a European diplomat told AFP about the offer. The diplomat asked not be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
A second diplomat said: "I think that there is no stomach at all from any country next week to posture or stir up any fires at this delicate time in the political process."
The IAEA board set off the latest crisis when it in February found Iran in violation of non-proliferation safeguards for almost two decades of hiding nuclear activities. This opened the door to possible punitive action by the United Nations Security Council.
Meanwhile, the United States, European Union countries Britain, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China have offered Iran a package of benefits if it suspends uranium enrichment and begins talks on guaranteeing it does not seek nuclear weapons, but threatened UN sanctions if Tehran fails to comply.
A senior Iranian official warned nations Friday to show "self-restraint" at the IAEA meeting in order not to endanger this diplomacy.
Iran's ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh said Iran has a "positive approach" to possible talks and that nothing should happen at the board "to affect this more or less positive environment."
His comments came after the IAEA reported Thursday that Iran had accelerated uranium enrichment on the same day that the six world powers asked it to halt the work and open talks.
Iran stepped up enrichment on June 6 when EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was in Tehran to present the package of benefits to be discussed if Iran suspends the work which makes nuclear reactor fuel or in highly refined form atom bomb material, the report said.
On June 6, it said, Iran started feeding feedstock uranium gas into a connected series of 164 centrifuges -- known as a cascade -- to produce enriched uranium.
Iran on Friday confirmed these facts.
Soltanieh said it was a "coincidence" and not meant as a provocation that Iran re-started enrichment work the same day that Solana was in Tehran.
The report appears to dash hopes Iran is preparing a pause in its nuclear fuel activities in order to start talks.
A Western diplomat said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei "had been quietly urging the Iranians to create the conditions necessary to return to negotiations and one of these could have been holding off from using any new nuclear material at this time."
Tehran says its nuclear program is to generate electricity but Washington charges this is a cover for developing atomic weapons.
Iran said Saturday it had started to study the world powers' offer and could make counter-proposals through shuttle diplomacy.
"We have opened the package, and we are studying it, and afterwards we will officially reply to the Europeans," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said.
He gave no timing for Iran's response.
US President George W. Bush said Friday that Tehran had "weeks and not months" to accept the offer and warned the Security Council would act if Iran did not comply.
A senior cleric close to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran would not suspend uranium enrichment.
"We must have uranium enrichment between 3.5 to 5 percent and they have to accept it," Ayatollah Ahmad Janati said Friday.
msa/bm
AFP 11 1238 GMT 06 06
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