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NUKEWARS
Iran nuclear report creates IAEA tensions
by Staff Writers
Vienna (AFP) Nov 15, 2011


Iran taking military strike threat seriously: official
United Nations (AFP) Nov 15, 2011 - Iran is taking seriously the reported threat of a military strike against its nuclear facilities, a senior Iranian official said Tuesday while insisting that any such action would be "very silly."

With tensions again rising over Iran's nuclear program, Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and head of the government's human rights council, insisted his country would never give up its right to acquire nuclear technology.

Questioned about reported threats of a military strike, Larijani told reporters: "No threat to Iran is taken superficially by the people in charge. We are fully prepared to confront any challenge. And to attack Iran may not be very difficult."

Military strikes would be "very silly," Larijani added on the sidelines of a visit to the United Nations. He also referred to the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists which the Islamic state has blamed on Israel and the United States.

"If you kill two scientists there are hundreds more, if you hit one place then another one will be built," he said.

"We are very proud that we know this technology and science. We are very proud that we are number one in the region. Nobody can deprive Iran of this capability," he declared.

Larijani repeated accusations that Israel "with the cooperation of the United States" was behind the killings in January 2010 and November last year of two Iranian nuclear scientists.

He was also asked about an explosion on Saturday at a military base near Tehran in which a top missile expert was killed. Larijani said first signs indicated "an accident" but that an investigation was underway.

The International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors' meets in Vienna on Thursday and Friday, and western powers want a resolution condemning Iran over a new report on its nuclear drive.

The United States and its European allies accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear bomb. Tehran denies the charge. Reports that Israel or another nation could launch a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities have stoked the tensions.

The UN atomic watchdog's damning new report on Iran's nuclear programme has set the stage for a diplomatic showdown at IAEA headquarters this week, pitting Russia and China against Western powers.

In the first test of international resolve to deal with Iran since last week's report, Washington and its allies want the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board on Thursday and Friday to ratchet up pressure on Tehran.

But amid speculation of an Israeli military strike, further stoked by a press report saying Mossad was behind last weekend's huge munitions blast in Iran, fellow UN Security Council heavyweights Beijing and Moscow are more reticent.

"This will be a tough one," one senior Western official in Vienna said. "We can all see from the statements coming out of various capitals, including Moscow, that there are strong views on this issue."

Despite stopping short of explicitly accusing Iran of developing nuclear weapons, the IAEA last Tuesday put out its hardest-hitting assessment to date, pinpointing activities with only one conceivable aim: producing the bomb.

Based on "broadly, credible" intelligence, its own information and some input from Iran itself, the IAEA said Iran had examined how to fit out a Shahab 3 missile -- with a range capable of reaching Israel --- with a nuclear warhead.

Washington and its Western partners want the IAEA board to approve what one European diplomat called a "clear resolution" condemning Iran. This could even go as far as to refer Iran to the UN Security Council.

The new report is "at least as momentous" as when Iran revealed in September 2009 that it had been secretly building a second uranium enrichment plant in a mountain bunker at Fordo near Qom, the senior Western official said.

That bombshell triggered a resolution condemning Iran at the IAEA that was backed by both Russia and China, and which brought the matter to the Security Council.

But Russia's unusually sharp criticism of the IAEA for even releasing the new report, calling it a "compilation of well-known facts ... intentionally presented in a politicised manner," lowers the chances of such a move.

Moscow's foreign ministry even went as far as to liken it to the false intelligence on Saddam Hussein's nuclear activities used by the United States and its allies to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

If Washington fails to push through a strong condemnation of Iran in Vienna, it is hard to see how it could push through the Security Council another resolution and what would be a fifth round of sanctions on Iran.

Resolutions in the IAEA board require only a simple majority -- and are often passed by "consensus," meaning without a vote -- but in the Security Council Russia and China both hold a veto.

The result, believes Mark Hibbs from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, could be a compromise IAEA resolution of "grave concern" and setting Iran a deadline of, for example, March to cooperate with the agency.

"That would make it more difficult for Russia and China to tolerate no action by the board of the agency in the future," Hibbs told AFP.

Talks between US President Barack Obama and Russian and Chinese counterparts Dmitry Medvedev and Hu Jintao at bilateral meetings over the weekend in Hawaii appeared to indicate some progress, meanwhile.

"On Iran, in the wake of President Obama's discussions with President Medvedev ... in Hawaii, we are working with the Russians to achieve a shared response to the IAEA report," a Western diplomat told AFP.

The IAEA board is also due to discuss Syria following a visit last month by the agency's head of safeguards to discuss the Dair Alzour desert site, thought to have been a secret nuclear facility, allegedly bombed by Israel in 2007.

Damascus, which has denied any nuclear activities took place at the site, was "less than helpful" during the visit and a Syrian promise to produce more data appears to be merely playing for time, another Western envoy said.

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NUKEWARS
World must halt Iran nuclear drive: Israel PM
Jerusalem (AFP) Nov 13, 2011
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called on world governments to waste no time in stopping "Iran's race to arm itself with a nuclear weapon." He was speaking to ministers and the media before a closed-door briefing to his cabinet on a report from the UN's atomic watchdog, which said it had "serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions" to Iran's nuclear programme ... read more


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