Iran heats up
Iran threatened on Tuesday to halt snap U.N. inspections of its nuclear sites and resume uranium enrichment if it was reported to the U.N. Security Council as agreed by the council’s five permanent members.In an angry response to the move by Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, Iran also warned it would hit back in the region if put under severe international pressure.
“In case of any referral or report to the council, we are obliged to lift all the suspensions and stop implementation of the Additional Protocol based on a law passed by parliament,” Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency.
The Additional Protocol of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed but not ratified by Iran, gives U.N. inspectors greater powers of access to suspected sites.
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Iran was responding to an agreement reached at late-night talks in London among the Security Council’s big five, plus Germany and the European Union, who decided that the U.N. nuclear watchdog should report to the council this week on what Tehran must do to cooperate with the agency.
“We consider any referral or report of Iran to the Security Council as the end of diplomacy,” Larijani, who is secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told state television.
Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the agreement to involve the council as a powerful signal to Iran.
“I hope it’s sending a message that the international community is united,” Blair told Reuters Television.
However, with Russia and China opposed to hasty action, the agreement delayed any decision on formal referral of Iran to the council, where it could face sanctions, until after a scheduled International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting on March 6.
Getting the initial agreement is a positive step, and raises some hopes that enough pressure will be brought on Iran to allow this to have a peaceful resolution. I remain skeptical of that however, I think Iran will take huge risks to gain nuclear weapons. I believe it will accept sanctions and even limited military strikes in exchange.
We will have a better indication of how far Iran is willing to go if it halts the IAEA inspections. Doing that would be a strong signal that they are not bluffing on the rest, and that they are willing to go all the way.
