Iran Yields Little in Talks With Monitors

Iran turned down a request by United Nations nuclear monitors for a second inspection of a military site, and an Iranian representative said Tuesday that a permanent moratorium on uranium enrichment was “not on the table.”

However, Sirius Naseri, an Iranian delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, added that Iran was continuing negotiations with three European countries who are urging Tehran to give up its enrichment activities in exchange for incentives such as commercial aircraft parts and possibly membership in the World Trade Organization. Enriched uranium can be used either to generate nuclear energy or make nuclear weapons.

U.S. officials and diplomats from some other countries say Iran is striving to build a nuclear bomb despite its assurances that it plans to use the uranium only for energy production. Though Iran has agreed to a temporary halt in enrichment, it says it was only a good-faith gesture during negotiations.

Naseri said Tuesday at the IAEA meeting in Vienna that a permanent moratorium on uranium enrichment “was not on the table, will not be on the table and should not be on the table.”

He indicated that Iran’s position in negotiations would depend on what the Europeans offered in the way of incentives. “If there is a political agreement, it has to be a give-and-take.... The Europeans will have to change their expectations in comparison to what they can offer.”

But he added, referring to uranium enrichment, “Iran will have a nuclear fuel production program for peaceful purposes.”

Britain, Germany and France are trying to get the United States to back their talks with Iran because without U.S. assent, they can’t guarantee Iran what it wants, particularly WTO membership.

Washington appears ready to work with the Europeans but has indicated it will do so only if Iran relinquishes any ambition to obtain nuclear weapons and there is a process to monitor and verify its nuclear activities.

The burden “is on the Iranians to take the opportunity that is being given to them by the European Union to demonstrate that they’re prepared to live up to their international obligations in a way that is verifiable and that gives confidence to the international community that they are not going to try to build a nuclear weapon,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday in London.

So far, Rice said, Iran has been unwilling to cooperate fully with the IAEA.

Those concerns were echoed in a report given to the IAEA board Tuesday by Pierre Goldschmidt, a deputy secretary-general of the agency.

Goldschmidt said the IAEA had asked Iran to voluntarily stop construction of a research reactor that uses heavy water. Heavy water can be used to produce plutonium, which can be used instead of enriched uranium in atomic weapons. But Iran declined, and work on the reactor is progressing.

Two other areas of concern for the IAEA are Iran’s Lavisan-Shian and Parchin sites.

Under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, of which Iran is a signatory, the country is not required to open all its doors to the IAEA. The agency has the right to inspect only those sites where it knows nuclear material has been.

IAEA investigators have made one visit to Parchin, a military site used for testing highly charged explosives, including the kind that could be used to detonate bombs. Goldschmidt and a senior agency official said that at Parchin, the inspectors were asked to select one of four areas for review. When inspectors got there, they were allowed to look at only five buildings.

The agency requested a return visit before the end of February but was turned down. Although there were suspicions about the Parchin location, the agency lacked hard evidence of nuclear activity there, so the visit was at Iran’s discretion.

Iran also offered only brief answers to questions about its activities over 10 years at Lavisan-Shian, despite IAEA requests to discuss them in detail. The agency wanted to learn about efforts by the Physics Research Center there to acquire “dual use” uranium enrichment material and equipment, which could be part of nuclear power or nuclear weapons programs.

Naseri defended Iran’s responses. “Iran has allowed access beyond anything it is required to do by law,” he said. “The agency for the time being has extensive information available to them. Let them assess it. They’ve asked to go beyond that, but first things first.”