The UN atomic agency’s board of governors was set Thursday to debate on a resolution criticising Iran brought by world powers that is also aimed at dissuading Israel from military action.
However, a minor amendment to the text proposed by South Africa caused a delay in proceedings at the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna, possibly postponing a vote until Friday.
Once the resolution goes before a vote, it was expected to be approved by a crushing majority.
The resolution was introduced at the meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation board on Wednesday after days of haggling between Western nations and Russia and China, which are seen as more lenient on Tehran.
The draft text, seen by AFP, expresses “serious concern that Iran continues to defy” UN Security Council resolutions for it to suspend uranium enrichment, a process which can be used for peaceful purposes but also in a nuclear weapon.
It also highlights the IAEA’s complaint that activities spotted at the Parchin military base, where it suspects nuclear weapons research took place, would “significantly hamper” inspectors — should Iran let them visit.
It also “stresses that it is essential for Iran to immediately implement” a deal that the Iran and the IAEA have been trying to agree for months on investigating alleged evidence of nuclear weapons research.
Non-Aligned Movement member South Africa wants the text to include the words “once it (the deal) had been concluded.” One Western diplomat told AFP that the amendment tweaked “the spirit” of the sentence.
Iran says its expanding atomic programme is for peaceful purposes, but since the IAEA says repeatedly that it is unable to vouch for this, the UN Security Council has passed six resolutions, four of them with sanctions attached.
The United States and the European Union have also imposed additional unilateral sanctions that have hit Iran’s vital oil exports hard, and EU foreign ministers said last weekend that they are considering additional measures.
The IAEA’s resolution, which Western diplomats said had the backing of all but a couple of members of the board, stops short of a referral of Iran to the Security Council, and is the 12th in nine years.
But it was significant that Western nations were able to get Moscow and Beijing on board, and at a time of heightened speculation that Israel, the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear-armed state, might bomb Iran, analysts say.
The resolution “reflects the desire of member states to underscore that diplomacy is paramount and it warns Israel in two separate paragraphs that the diplomatic process should be supported,” Mark Hibbs from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told AFP.
Israeli frustration has grown at what it sees as a failure by the international community to take seriously the threat posed by Iran or to stop it inching ever closer to “break-out capacity.”
In particular, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pressing US President Barack Obama to identify “red lines” for when it would take action.
Obama, running for re-election in November and keen to avoid being depicted as soft on Iran by Republican challenger Mitt Romney, spoke to Netanyahu for an hour by phone in the early hours of Wednesday.
French President Francois Hollande also spoke with Netanyahu by phone on Wednesday and urged a peaceful solution while stressing that Iran should comply with Security Council resolutions, the Elysee Palace said.
