A mooted deal between the IAEA and Iran got a cool reception Tuesday on the eve of talks with world powers aimed at defusing the dangerously escalating crisis over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Israel, which has refused to rule out bombing Iran, warned the P5+1 — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany — against “weakness” in Wednesday’s meeting in Baghdad. Yukiya Amano, International Atomic Energy Agency head, said on returning from Tehran that he and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator made a “decision” to reach an agreement on the UN watchdog probing suspected weapons activities. But contrary to the hopes of some diplomats before he left on Sunday, Amano failed to actually sign a deal, saying at Vienna airport that this would happen “quite soon” because of remaining, unspecified “differences.” Addressing accusations in a major IAEA report from November that until 2003, and possibly since, Iran did work “relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device” is a key — but not the only — demand of the P5+1.
