The UN nuclear watchdog wants to send a special high-level mission to Iran to address mounting concerns the country may be seeking to design nuclear weapons, its head said on Thursday. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano said he had written to the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation earlier this month to suggest the visit, which would air issues raised by the IAEA’s latest report on Iran.
“I hope a suitable date can be agreed soon. It is essential that any such mission should be well planned and that it should address the issues contained in my report,” Amano told an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna. Western diplomats said six world powers were close to finalising an agreement on a draft resolution at the two-day IAEA meeting expressing concern about Iran’s activities and calling on it to cooperate with the IAEA.
The fact that the six major powers were set to agree on a joint text will be welcomed in the West after the IAEA report prompted Russia to complain that it was politicised and dimmed chances of a negotiated solution to the Iran nuclear dispute. Moscow’s stance exposed big power divisions over how to best to resolve it.
“It (resolution) will maintain pressure on Iran,” one Western diplomat said.
IAEA IRAN RESOLUTION LACKS DEADLINE: A resolution being hammered out at the UN nuclear watchdog on Iran sets Tehran no deadline for responding to the body’s damning new report on its nuclear programme, diplomats said Thursday. Instead the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board will call on the watchdog’s head Yukiya Amano merely to brief the board on progress, a Western diplomat said, something the Japanese would most likely do anyway.
