West dismayed at failure of IAEA talks in Iran
The failure of talks this week between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency over the Iranian nuclear programme has triggered dismay in western capitals, heightening concerns that any forthcoming negotiations between Tehran and world powers are destined to make little progress.
As an IAEA team returned to the agencys headquarters on Wednesday from a fruitless two-day meeting with officials in Tehran, western diplomats said Irans stance during the encounter suggested it was unlikely to negotiate seriously over its programme any time soon.
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Their return came as Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reiterated the regimes long-held view that the country was not pursuing nuclear weapons and vowed that pressure, sanctions, terrors and threats could not force the country to abandon its programme.
The diplomatic pressure on Iran has been growing since the IAEA published a lengthy report last November into possible military dimensions of its nuclear programme, detailing a long list of questions it has compiled relating to allegations that the regime has sought to build a bomb in defiance of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The IAEA has paid two visits to Iran in recent weeks which have widely been seen as an opportunity for the regime to come clean over the allegations.
Early on Wednesday, the IAEA issued a terse statement saying both meetings had been disappointing, with no agreement reached on any of the issues under discussion.
The IAEA said that in the two rounds of discussions it has requested access to a military site at Parchin, where the watchdog suspects that testing of parts for a nuclear warhead has been undertaken. Iran did not grant permission for this visit to take place, the IAEA said. The agency added that it had engaged with Iran in a constructive spirit, but no agreement was reached.
According to a senior diplomat based at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, the agencys brief statement at the end of the meeting was unprecedented for the organisation. Its very unusual for the IAEA secretariat to deliver such a blunt statement in this way, the diplomat said. Usually, they come back from a visit like this and digest and consider things before commenting. The IAEA inspectors clearly feel a deep sense of frustration about how product-free their visits have been.
Another senior diplomat at the Vienna headquarters said: Iran did not throw a bone to the IAEA delegation at any time. You now have to wonder whether the Iranians are in a mood to negotiate over any aspect of the programme.
The IAEA is likely to censure Iran in the latest report into its nuclear programme that may be published on Friday. The report, which comes ahead of a regular meeting of the IAEA board of governors, will also be watched closely for any fresh detail it contains on Irans progress in developing a second uranium enrichment site near Qom.
Diplomats say the wider significance of Irans failure to deal with the IAEA is that it augurs badly for talks that may be held between Iran and world powers over the next few weeks. The six world powers that negotiate with Iran the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany are likely to give the green light to a new round of talks with Iran next week. However, western diplomats are becoming highly sceptical that Iran will enter into meaningful negotiations over the future of its programme.
Not sure why Iran is not being cooperative with IAEA, maybe posturing for upcoming negotiations? I hope so.
