Nuclear Crisis

[donsaeid]

انگيزه هاي انگليس ، آلمان و فرانسه و مشخصاً ايالات متحده براي سوق دادن ايران به سمت تحريم و تنبيه بسيار بيشترازمسئله كره شمالي است و ريشه در ساختار منطقه اي و بين المللي سياستهاي ايران دارد .
امريكا مقابله با ايران را به صورت "تحريم*ها*ي تدريجي" و با صدور قطعنامه*ها*ي پي درپي دردستوركارقرارداده است و زمينه هاي اين پروسه را نيز فراهم كرده است . در حاليكه بازرسان آژانس غلظت اورانيوم غني*شده در ايران را حدود 3.5 درصد تعيين كرده*اند گزارش كميته اطلاعاتي كنگره امريكا در تابستان سال جاري به احتمال وجود اورانيوم با غلظت 90 درصد در ايران اشاره كرده است.
درصورتبكه تا زماني كه ايران فرآيند غني*سازي اورانيوم را تنها در ابعاد آزمايشگاهي دنبال مي*كند به هيچ وجه نمي*توان اين ادعا را مطرح كرد كه احتمال دستيابي اين كشور به بمب اتم يا چيزي شبيه آن وجود دارد. اين موضوع بقدري روشن است كه گروه بازها و اشخاصي چون "جان نگروپونته" وزير امنيت داخلي كابينه بوش نيز تاكنون نتوانسته*اند از احتمال مداخله نظامي ايالات متحده سخن بگويند و معتقدند كه دستيابي كامل ايران به تسليحات هسته اي حداقل در بازه 10 سال آينده غيرممكن است .

در اين برهه ، اقدامات كنوني و متعاقب ايران نيز به عنوان مخاطب قطعنامه تحريمي پيشنهادي ، حائز اهميت است .
در آستانه ارائه پيش نويس قطعنامه ، ايران گازدهي به آبشار دوم سانتريفيوژها را آغاز كرد و اين درحالي بود كه مدتها قبل آژانس را مطلع كرده بود و بازرسان نيز يك هفته قبل از آن طي بازديد از نطنز از آن مطلع بودند و از طرفي ايران در ماه آوريل سال جاري (فروردين ماه) اعلام كرده بود كه تا پايان سال شمسي تعداد سانتريفيوژها را به 3000 دستگاه افزايش مي دهد . ايران قبلاً نيز در زمان ضرب الاجل غرب و در آستانه قطعنامه 1696 نيز در اواخر ماه آگوست ، مجتمع آب سنگين اراك را راه اندازي كرد .
اين اقدامات ايران قبل از تصويب قطعنامه هاي تحريمي پيام روشني را به مصوبين آن مخابره مي كند و آن اراده راسخ براي تداوم فعاليتهاي صلح آميزهسته ايش است ، كه با ساختارقانوني آژانس و روح NPT منافاتي ندارد ، درصورتيكه توانمندي هسته ايران به مراتب بيشتر از كره شمالي است اما هيچگاه به سمت آزمايشات هسته اي منعطف نشده است .

از طرف ديگر بلافاصله پس از ابتكار PSI و مانور امريكا و متحدانش در آبهاي خليج فارس ، ايران طي مانورپيامبر اعظم 2 وبا آزمايش موشكهاي استراتژيك خود پاسخي از هرگونه رفتارغيرعقلاني و افراطي غرب را درقبال خود به نمايش گذاشت .

همانطوركه قبلاً اشاره شد ، امريكا كمتر از ديگر بانيان اروپايي تحريم ايران متضرر مي شود چراكه در طول 3 دهه گذشته بنوعي تبعات آن براي دوطرف ملموس بوده است اما ، 3 كشور اروپايي پيشنهاد دهنده پيش نويس قطعنامه پيش روي بهمراه روسيه و چين از جهات استزاتژيك سياسي و اقتصادي از قبل تحريم ايران متحمل ضررهاي بسياري خصوصاً در حوزه منطقه اي خواهند شد و كشورهاي منطقه نيز درصورت همراهي با ايالات متحده از تبعات اقتصادي و ژئوپلتيك آن درامان نخواهند بود .
بديهي است د صورت اعمال فشار امريكا و تصويب نهايي قطعنامه پيش روي ، دولتمردان اين كشور دچار "اشتباهات محاسباتي" و تكرار تراژدي دموكراتها در زمان كلينتون كه با ارائه بسته اي مشابه به كره شمالي و درپي آن استراتژي نابخردانه نئوكانها و اتخاذ سياست "مشت آهنين" در قبال كره شمالي نهايتاً به خروج اين كشور از NPT و اخراج بازرسان آژانش به آزمايش اتمي درسال جاري ختم شد، خواهند شد .

در پايان آنچه حاميان تحريم ايران نبايد از نظر دور نگاه دارند اينكه ؛ تجربه نشان داده است كه سياستهاي تحريمي تاكنون درعرصه بين المللي چندان كارساز نبوده اند و تحريم حتي در خصوص حكومتي مانند حكومت پيشين عراق و حتي كره شمالي كه تفاوت*هاي ساختاري بسياري با ايران دارند، چندان مؤثر نبود و همچنين دوران اقدام نظامي و تحريم براي به زانو درآوردن كشورها گذشته است و در شرايطي كه اقتصاد جهاني مانند "زنجيره*اي" به هم متصل شده است تحريم يكجانبه ايران عملي نخواهدبود و به انزواي بيشتر آنها خواهد انجاميد و به مثابه "شيرجه درباتلاق" است !
ازطرفي چنانچه اقدامات تنبيهي برعليه ايران اعمال شود ، ممكن است ايران نيز پس از شركت فعال در "4 دوره مذاكرات طولاني مدت " و مشاهده كارشكنيهاي متعدد و اشتباه فاحش غرب درارجاع پرونده هسته اي ايران به شوراي امنيت ، راه كره*شمالي را در پيش گرفته و اقدام به خروج كامل از معاهده منع گسترش تسليحات اتمي و محدودكردن همكاريها با آژانس نمايد.

دراين برهه مسئولان كشور بايد توجه داشته باشند كه هرچند در داخل كشور همه از صلح آميز بودن ادامه برنامه هسته اي اطمينان دارند اما ، در افكار عمومي جهاني با توجه به تبليغات صورت گرفته اين گونه نيست و ايران با كشوري چون كره شمالي مقايسه مي شود و دراين برهه ايران بايد ازعدم انسجام كافي اعضاي شوراي امنيت استفاده كرده و درجهت كند نمودن روند تصميم گيري آنها با استفاده از جايگاه منطقه اي و قابليتهاي ديپلماتيك خود تلاش كند ، چراكه قطع مذاكرات و عدم استفاده از امكانات ديپلماتيك كاملا در جهت منافع آمريكاست.

[Rasputin]

CIA analysis finds no Iranian nuclear weapons drive: report

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A classifed draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House, a top US investigative reporter has said.


Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the magazine The New Yorker released in advance, reported on whether the administration of Republican President George W. Bush was more, or less, inclined to attack Iran after Democrats won control of Congress last week.

A month before the November 7 legislative elections, Hersh wrote, Vice President Dick Cheney attended a national-security discussion that touched on the impact of Democratic victory in both chambers on Iran policy.

"If the Democrats won on November 7th, the vice president said, that victory would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran," Hersh wrote, citing a source familiar with the discussion.

Cheney said the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions "and thus stop Congress from getting in its way," he said.

The Democratic victory unleashed a surge of calls for the Bush administration to begin direct talks with Iran.

But the administration's planning of a military option was made "far more complicated" in recent months by a highly classified draft assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency "challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb," he wrote.

"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running paallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency," Hersh wrote, adding the CIA had declined to comment on that story.

A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis and said the White House had been hostile to it, he wrote.

Cheney and his aides had discounted the assessment, the official said.

"They're not looking for a smoking gun," the official was quoted as saying, referring to specific intelligence about Iranian nuclear planning.

"They're looking for the degree of comfort level they think they need to accomplish the mission."

The United States and other major powers believe Iran's uranium enrichment program is ultimately aimed at producing fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Iran insists it will use the enriched uranium only to fuel nuclear power stations, something it is permitted to do as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The major powers have been debating a draft United Nations resolution drawn up by Britain, France and Germany that would impose limited sanctions on Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile sectors for Tehran's failure to comply with an earlier UN resolution on halting enrichment.

On Wednesday, Israel's outgoing US ambassador Danny Ayalon said in an interview that Bush would not hesitate to use force against Iran to halt its nuclear program if other options failed.

"US President George W. Bush will not hesitate to use force against Iran in order to halt its nuclear program," Ayalon told the Maariv daily.

Israel, widely considered the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, views Iran as its arch-foe, pointing to repeated calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to wipe the Jewish state off the map.

[Rasputin]

Iran vows to press on with Arak reactor

TEHRAN (Reuters)Iran, facing possible U.N. sanctions for failing to halt sensitive nuclear work, will press on with its Arak heavy water reactor with or without help from the U.N. nuclear watchdog, a top Iranian nuclear official said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly urged Iran to reconsider the Arak project, but Iran has kept on building and now wants IAEA technical expertise to ensure the plant meets safety standards.

Diplomats say the IAEA is unlikely to agree because of fears the Arak plant, which Iranian officials say is for peaceful purposes, could produce atomic explosives.

"Whether the IAEA helps or not, the research reactor in Arak will continue its work," the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) on Saturday quoted Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, as saying.

"If the IAEA denies the assistance, it will be harmful for the IAEA...It is the IAEA that insists on Iran cooperating with it on the security dimension of the reactor."

Aghazadeh also said Arak, due for completion in 2009, would make isotopes for medical and other peaceful uses. He said it would replace a light water research reactor in Tehran, built by the United States before Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

RICE TALKS

Western leaders say that, given Iran's record of hiding nuclear research from U.N. inspectors and evading IAEA probes, there is a high risk that it will produce plutonium, used in nuclear warheads, as a by-product of Arak's other output.

The United States is also seeking support for U.N. sanctions against Iran over its uranium enrichment program, which Washington fears could be used to build atomic bombs. Tehran says it only wants to produce electricity.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on Saturday for quick action on a draft Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for its failure to halt the enrichment.

However, Rice's talks, at a summit meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in Vietnam, appeared no closer to overcoming differences at the United Nations over the draft, drawn up by Britain, France and Germany and backed by Washington.

The draft resolution demands nations prevent the sale or supply of equipment, technology or financing that would contribute to Iran's nuclear or ballistic missile programs.

"The (Chinese) foreign minister really said that we all agree on the objectives. We all agree...this resolution is a sanctions resolution. The differences are how hard to push the Iranians right now," said a senior U.S. official in Hanoi.

"The secretary said yes, but now we have to get...a good strong resolution, in the near future," he said.

The United States has tried to reassure Russia and China, which both want amendments to the draft, that it is not seeking sweeping economic restrictions against Tehran.

The commander-in-chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday imposing sanctions on Iran could result in the disruption of international oil flows through the strategic Gulf waterway, state television reported.

Yahya Rahim Safavi did not say how those flows would be affected but some Iranian officials have previously hinted Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, could use oil as a weapon in its nuclear standoff.

The Revolutionary Guards, the ideological wing of Iran's military, recently held several sets of war games in and around the Gulf, which analysts interpreted as muscle-flexing and a veiled threat about Iran's ability to disrupt shipping if pushed.

[Rasputin]

As Iran Seeks Aid, Atom Agency Faces Quandary

At a place called Arak in the desert southwest of Tehran, behind barbed wire and antiaircraft guns, Iran is building a heavy-water nuclear reactor. The government says it will produce radioactive isotopes for medical treatments. As an unavoidable byproduct, it will also make plutonium, one of the primary fuels for atom bombs.

At the International Atomic Energy Agency, inspectors are trying to make sure that Tehran never uses its nuclear infrastructure to make weapons. Indeed, for just that reason, the agency’s board has repeatedly called on the Iranians to abandon the Arak reactor. Yet when the board meets this week in Vienna, it will consider an Iranian request for technical help in safely completing the reactor, which is to go online as soon as 2009.

Traditionally, technical aid has been routinely granted, part of the agency’s efforts to nurture the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Now, though, amid growing international suspicion about Iran’s real nuclear intentions — and especially about a far more publicized part of its nuclear program, the enrichment of uranium — the Arak proposal is provoking bitter and unusual debate.

Calling the reactor an arms threat, the United States and its allies say the agency should deny Iran’s request. Helping make Arak’s operations safe, they say, would only speed the reactor’s completion — and Iran’s emergence as a nuclear power.

But some developing nations say that a rebuff to the Iranians would set a bad precedent that could threaten their own peaceful atomic pursuits. Echoing an argument that Iran has often used in its recent nuclear diplomacy, they frame Arak as a new front in a war between the world’s nuclear haves and have-nots.

In recent days, the dispute has produced a rush of speeches, lobbying and behind-the-scenes arm twisting among members of the agency’s 35-nation board.

“It’s a big deal,” said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a private group in Washington. “This is the first test of the I.A.E.A.’s resolve to pressure Iran to halt this project. If it moves forward, it could give Iran a second track to making nuclear material for bombs.”

Agency officials say a rejection of technical assistance would be unprecedented, and some of them want to press ahead. Last week, the agency’s secretariat said it had found no legal basis to deny the request, diplomats said.

Arak, in short, shows the increasingly delicate nature of the atomic energy agency’s long-running balancing act — part nuclear policeman, part promoter of atomic science and safety. By its nature, the same nuclear technology that lights cities can, with a little extra effort, fuel bombs. A question Arak poses for the agency is whether it must adjust its dual role in a time of heightened concern about nuclear proliferation, not just in the Middle East, but worldwide.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the agency, based in Vienna, denied that the Arak reactor had any use for weapons, saying it would aid hospitals, agriculture and industry.

“The world should know the other side of the coin, not just what the White House says,” he said in an interview. “The international community has the right to see the reality of the exclusively peaceful nature of our activities and our full cooperation with the agency.”

Mr. Soltanieh said Iran had won support for agency assistance to Arak from such international bodies as the group of developing states known as the G-77. “Technical cooperation should not be politicized,” he said. “Iran should be encouraged to use the agency’s technical expertise for nuclear safety.”

But Robert J. Einhorn, who directed nonproliferation at the State Department from 1999 to 2001 and now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the agency’s board should reject aid to “a project conceived long ago as providing Iran another route to a nuclear weapons capability.” Arak, he added, “will be capable of producing enough plutonium for about two bombs a year.”

[Rasputin]

Mr. Einhorn conceded that the reactor could have peaceful uses, though implausibly so. “A 12-inch hunting knife,” he said, “also could be used to spread jam on your toast in the morning.”

To opponents of the Arak project, it would be surprising were the board to approve the Arak proposal just days after the atomic energy agency reported that inspectors had found unexplained traces of plutonium in Iran, and that Tehran continued to withhold answers to important questions about its nuclear activities.

And it was the agency’s board that, in February, after Iran defied agency demands to halt its uranium enrichment program, decided to report the case to the United Nations Security Council. That set in motion a search for sanctions that still divides the world’s nuclear powers.

The agency’s aid to Iran is part of a wide program of “technical cooperation” that is poorly known outside specialist circles. Still, it accounts for about one-third of the annual agency budget; the agency is spending roughly $100 million on such programs this year. In a way, the projects are a carrot the agency offers to offset its intrusive policing of civilian technologies to bar nations from the secret pursuit of atom bombs. But critics say the deal is intrinsically bad. “Atoms for peace,” they insist, is an illusion that no amount of policing can make real, with dishonest states always able to turn civilian nuclear technologies to destructive ends.

Today, the technical aid program involves more than 100 nations. The agency assisted Iran’s hunt for uranium in the 1980s and currently has 14 cooperative projects with Tehran, including helping it prepare to operate its Bushehr reactor, which is designed to make electricity.

“We provide expert services, so they can learn to do things for themselves,” said M. Peter Salema, an agency official who helps run the Iranian projects. The paramount aim, he added, is reactor safety. “If there is a bad incident, it affects the whole nuclear industry everywhere, like Chernobyl.”

Iran’s new request seeks agency aid not in designing or building the 40-megawatt Arak reactor, but in ensuring its safe operation. Western diplomats say that includes everything from helping Iran learn how to avoid catastrophic plant failure to minimizing radiation dangers in the handling of spent fuel rods, which would bear the plutonium.

That plutonium is the reason Arak has been a subject of concern since construction first came to light in 2002. Atom bombs use two main fuels — plutonium and uranium. In recent years, world attention has focused mainly on Tehran’s efforts to enrich uranium. But weapons designers often prefer plutonium, because it takes less to produce a significant blast, making it ideal for compact missile warheads.

What’s more, experts say heavy-water reactors like Arak are inherently dangerous for nuclear proliferation because they are better at producing weapons-grade plutonium than light-water reactors like Bushehr. Heavy water, so called because it contains a heavy form of hydrogen, slows down speeding neutrons so uranium fuel can absorb them. In some cases, this merging splits uranium atoms in two. In other cases, the uranium is transformed into plutonium. Engineers remove the plutonium from spent fuel in a step known as reprocessing.

The Arak reactor, experts say, is similar in design to heavy-water reactors that Israel, India and Pakistan use to make plutonium for nuclear arms.

The Arak complex holds both the half-built reactor and a sprawling plant for the production of heavy water that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad formally inaugurated in August, saying, “The Iranian people are determined to take big steps.”

The wrangling over aid to Arak began last week at preparatory meetings in Vienna. Egypt and some other developing nations argued for preserving the status quo and trusting the secretariat’s judgment that there was no basis for denying the aid.

The American ambassador to the atomic agency, Gregory L. Schulte, said in an interview that objections had arisen because Arak made little sense from a civil perspective but great sense for making weapons. Moreover, he said, Iran had failed to explain inconsistencies that the agency uncovered in a clandestine Iranian program to separate plutonium from spent reactor fuel.

“The United States and other board members,” he said, “cannot agree to have the I.A.E.A. assist the project.”

[Rasputin]

Some Western diplomats suspect that Iran expected to have the reactor aid denied, and that its real goal was to show that the United States and its allies want to keep the developing world in a state of atomic backwardness.

In a speech last Thursday at the University of Vienna, Mr. Schulte predicted that the agency’s board “will not fall for Iran’s attempt to politicize and misuse the I.A.E.A.’s technical cooperation program.” He stressed his country’s longstanding financial support for technical aid, saying the United States had contributed more than $200 million since 2003. But he added, “Technical cooperation is meant for peaceful purposes, not to help countries build nuclear bombs.”

At the meetings last week, Iran also warned against the politicization of technical aid. An Iranian representative said conservatives in Iran would use a decision to deny the aid as evidence of the West’s malice. “Don’t give fuel to the hard-liners, who are ready to put everything in jeopardy,” he said, according to a diplomat present.

In the interview, Mr. Soltanieh said Washington was wrong to see Arak as a step to acquiring nuclear weapons, insisting that Iran had no plans to build a reprocessing plant that could extract plutonium from Arak’s spent nuclear fuel. “Their calculations and physics are very weak,” he said of American officials. “They make so many mistakes.”

From Monday through Wednesday, a committee of the agency’s board is to study hundreds of proposed aid projects, and the full board is to vote on them when it meets Thursday and Friday. The board, currently led by Slovenia, does not include Iran.

While the United States has lobbied hard on the Arak issue and says it expects to prevail, there are countries on the board that may back Iran, including Bolivia, Cuba and Syria, diplomats said. It takes a simple majority of the board to back or kill a measure.

A possible compromise, some said, would have the issue of Arak aid deferred rather than rejected outright.

Diplomats said that only twice before had technical aid projects drawn political fire. The United States questioned aid to Cuba around 1990 and to North Korea in 1991, but both projects moved ahead, the diplomats said.

Nuclear experts doubt that an aid denial would do much to slow the eventual completion of Arak, given the growing skill of Iranian engineers and Iran’s aggressive nuclear stance.

“No matter what, we are going to continue the construction,” Mr. Soltanieh said. “There’s no way to stop it.”

[Rasputin]

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has not found conclusive evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a US magazine has reported.
Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker, cites a secret CIA report based on intelligence such as satellite images.

Correspondents say the alleged document appears to challenge Washington's views regarding Iranian nuclear intentions.

The article says the White House was dismissive about the CIA report.

The US and Europe say Iran is pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programme - a charge Iran has strongly denied.

'Hostile' response

The CIA assessment, according to unnamed officials quoted in the article, casts doubt on how far Iran has actually progressed to making a nuclear weapon.

The White House is not going to dignify the work of an author who has viciously degraded our troops

Dana Perino
White House spokeswoman
"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency," Mr Hersh wrote.

It says the agency based its conclusions on technical intelligence, such as satellite photography and measurements from sensors planted by US and Israeli agents.

The article says: "A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino criticised the article, calling it an "error-filled" piece in a "series of inaccuracy-riddled articles about the Bush administration".

"The White House is not going to dignify the work of an author who has viciously degraded our troops, and whose articles consistently rely on outright falsehoods to justify his own radical views," she was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says if the New Yorker article is correct, it would suggest that the CIA is being more cautious than the Bush administration in evaluating whether or not Iran is on its way to building a bomb.

And he says, as with Iraq, it suggests political battles to come over how intelligence is used as a basis for American foreign policy.

[Rasputin]

VIENNA (Reuters) - Western powers urged the U.N. nuclear agency on Monday to deny Iran's request for help with a plant that could yield plutonium for atom bombs, but Washington voiced no objection to seven other projects presented by Tehran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation governing board has repeatedly asked Iran not to pursue the Arak heavy water reactor project. Tehran has vowed to complete it and applied for IAEA expertise to ensure it meets safety standards.

Although IAEA approval of such requests is usually routine, Western board members said the Arak case must be rejected due to Iran's record of evading IAEA non-proliferation inspections and its defiance of U.N. demands to stop enriching uranium.

"Given past board decisions, continued questions about Iran's nuclear program and the risk of plutonium being diverted to use in a weapon, the United States joins with others who cannot approve this (Arak) project," Gregory Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, told the weeklong board session.

Finnish Ambassador ***sti Helena Kauppi, speaking on behalf of the EU, said technical expertise should be withheld from Arak as it "would involve a significant proliferation risk."

Iran denies intent to derive plutonium from Arak, saying it would produce only radio-isotopes for medical uses, replacing a smaller light-water reactor that predates Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution and is said by Tehran to be obsolete.

Developing nations locked horns with Western counterparts at the meeting, saying that a rejection of Tehran's request would set a politicized precedent for withholding technical aid from them for peaceful atomic energy programs.

Diplomats said most board members wanted to avoid a divisive vote that Iran was likely to lose and blame on Western bullying.

CONSENSUS COMPROMISE IN WORKS?

They said a deal was being considered under which the board would shelve the Arak item while approving the other seven technical aid requests made by Iran, seen as less problematic.

Schulte said Washington was prepared to join a consensus for that solution since IAEA experts had certified these projects would not further Iran's ability to produce atomic fuel.

They include developing radiation therapy for medical ends, help in commissioning a Russian-built nuclear reactor not deemed a proliferation risk, and regulatory aspects of nuclear energy.

Diplomats said a feasible outcome was a compromise to defer, rather than reject outright, the Arak item pending guidance from the Security Council, where world powers are mulling sanctions on Iran but are split over how tough they should be.

"Deferral is the most likely option as it would help avoid alienating developing nations on the board and buy time to see what the Security Council will do to resolve this battle elsewhere," a senior IAEA diplomat told Reuters.

A statement delivered by the Non-Aligned Movement of developing nations, to which Iran belongs, said NAM condemned any attempts "to use the IAEA technical co-operation program as a tool for political purposes" in violation of IAEA statutes.

The Arak case has symbolized the diplomatic crisis over the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions.

Tehran says these are limited to generating electricity. The United States and EU fear Iran is seeking bombs to threaten Israel and Western interests in the Middle East.

Iran vows to build the reactor whether IAEA safety aid is granted or not. It is one of 820 proposals from 115 nations up for consideration and ratification by the board by Friday.

Russia and China, who oppose U.N. sanctions for Iran sought by the West, had no problems with the Arak item, diplomats said.

Iranian IAEA envoy Aliasghar Soltanieh, accused Western powers of politicizing technical aid.

"By approving this project, the IAEA will have much more presence and supervision at Arak than before, continuously monitoring and giving safety advice," Soltanieh told reporters.

[Rasputin]

The GCC countries will have to acquire nuclear capabilities to live with nuclear capable Iran, according to a prominent political mentor.

"With nuclear capable Iran, the GCC countries will, as a first stag have to enter into firm defence arrangement with the US to provide protection in the case of use or threat to use nuclear weapons. Over time, countries such as Saudi Arabi, Egypt and others will want to have their own nuclear weapons," Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's minister mentor, told Gulf News yesterday.

He said that despite strict scrutiny, these countries can get the knowhow to acquire these weapons, making the entire Middle East and not only Israel and Iran nuclear capable.

According to Lee, the man who turned the island of Singapore from a sleepy backwater into one of the world's wealthiest states, the policy of mutually assured destruction is the only deterrence, bringing more nuclear weapons to the Gulf.

On the political reforms in the UAE, Lee said: "The UAE has to go on the pace and in the manner that suits its culture and history. You have to slowly evolve. If you have a sudden change, you could have disruption."

On how this evolution takes place, Lee said this is really dependent on how quickly you are able to educate the people. "And more important, how large educated middle class you will have. Because for any democratic system to run successfully, you need a large educated middle class people."

Of the UAE development, Lee said the country is pretty well advanced and if it is only seven per cent of its master plan's goals that has been achieved [according to His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai] so the UAE is going to be as advanced as any developed country in the world. You have the resources to do it. The missing element is the human capability to match your infrastructure.

Lee does not think a Western style democracy will fit for the Arab countries. "It has to be an Arab style democracy. An Arab democracy depending on each Arab country, because each country has a different history and different social structure and cannot suddenly break away from that system.

On a formula for development in the Arab world, Lee said: "I do not think there is a formula. But the general principles are quite clear. To become a developed, industrial or technologically competent society, you have to have highly educated population. Second, you must have a social system which gives equal opportunities to everybody, so the best rise to the top regardless of whether you are a royal family or not.

For Lee, it was not possible 40 years ago to have foreseen the technological changes that led to the miraculous transformation of Singapore. "I studied small countries such as Hong Kong and Switzerland to know how do we get there. We grasped opportunities so we grew. So it's taking advantages and maximizing opportunities depending on the evolution of the world."

Lee is of the view that China and India are moving steadily towards restoring their position in the early 19th century when they were responsible for 40 per cent of the world GDP.

"Economically, China and India will become superpowers, but in the military field I am not sure. Military capabilities do not depend on just the size of manpower. And I do not believe that in the next 30 or 40 years, China can catch up to the American or even European military technology, as they are concentrating on how to disable leading edge technology rather than acquiring this technology," Lee said.

Lee does not see much of change in the next 10 to 15 year. "But in 50 years, the economic disparity will be very much low while the living standards and the quality of life will improve remarkably.

"In 50 years I see China, Korea and Japan at the high-tech end of the value chain."

[Rasputin]

Japan, the world's second-largest oil importer after the U.S., halted its $10 billion financing of projects in Iran until the country complies with demands to halt its nuclear program, an official said.

``New projects, no thanks,'' Fumio Hoshi, senior executive director of state-owned Japan Bank for International Cooperation, told reporters today. Lending will cease until ``we have a good outcome from the negotiations between Iran, the Europeans and the U.S.''

Inpex Holding Inc. Japan's biggest oil explorer, on Oct. 6 said it relinquished control of Iran's Azagedan oilfield project after a dispute with the country's oil ministry. Iran may give China and Russia access to the Azadegan field in return for support at the United Nations, which is consider sanctions over Iran's nuclear program.

The Islamic Republic, which holds the world's second- largest oil stocks after Saudi Arabia, has refused to end its uranium enrichment program, prompting the U.S. and some European nations to seek the imposition of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council.

The U.S. suspects the Iranian drive to produce enriched uranium is a precursor to building a nuclear bomb, in contravention of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory.

Iran Needs Yen

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government needs Japanese investment to help it boost oil output to 4.6 million barrels a day by 2010.

``If the Japanese funding stops, I think the Iranians will have to prioritize their projects by completing those say 80 percent through and delaying those at an early stage,'' Manouchehr Takin, senior analyst at the Center for Global Energy Studies, said in a phone interview from London today.

An official at Iran's Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, declined to comment or be named when called today in Tehran. Noboru Tezuka, Inpex's managing director for Iran, declined to be interviewed today in Dubai.

Japan needs the $2.5 billion Azadegan project to help meet a goal of getting 40 percent of oil imports from assets it controls. Asia's biggest oil importer got 13.8 percent of its crude from Iran in 2005, making the Middle East nation Japan's third-biggest source of crude.

Japan Bank, the overseas lender for the Japanese government, has currently more than $10 billion committed to nine projects in Iran, mainly in the petrochemicals and gas industries, he said. Japan Bank for International Cooperation has about $18 billion of bonds outstanding.

Swiss Banks Say No More

The U.S., which already imposes sanctions on Tehran, wants the UN Security Council to punish Iran for refusing to abide by an Aug. 31 deadline to suspend uranium enrichment by imposing an economic embargo.

Credit Suisse Group and UBS AG, Switzerland's biggest banks, said in January they wouldn't seek new business in Iran after reviewing the country's risk situation.

UBS went further than Credit Suisse, saying it would close all its accounts held by individuals and companies resident in Iran, and shut down its trade-financing business in the country.

Total SA, ENI SpA and Statoil ASA are among international oil companies to have completed projects in Iran even though their U.S. competitors are prohibited from working there.

BP Plc is avoiding doing business in the Islamic Republic for fear of retribution from the U.S. which forbids oil companies from investing directly in Iran. BP's Chief Executive Lord Browne last year described doing business in Iran as ``offensive.''

[Rasputin]

VIENNA, Austria - The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency effectively agreed Wednesday to deny Iran technical help in building a plutonium-producing reactor but left room for Tehran to renew its request in two years, diplomats said.

A committee of the International Atomic Energy Agency forwarded a summary of three days of deliberations on 832 requests for technical aid to the full board, scheduled to meet Thursday.

That gathering was expected to waive a decision on Tehran's request for aid for its Arak reactor. That, in effect, would deny IAEA money for Arak — at least for the next two years, after which new requests will be considered.

The two diplomats — from countries on opposing sides of the issue — had different interpretations of what the expected ruling would mean, reflecting the depth of the dispute. Both demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the topic with the media.

A European diplomat said the tentative agreement effectively meant that Iran's request was turned down. Another diplomat, from a developing nation, said it meant that the issue remained on the table because it could be revisited.

"It certainly is not denied," he said.

The committee summary noted that "several members expressed the need for caution regarding technical cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran." They "expressed particular concern" over Arak, saying they could not approve other Iranian projects if aid for the reactor were approved, said the summary of the closed meeting, obtained by The Associated Press.

Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. representative to the IAEA, said his country had no choice but to oppose aid to Arak, given past calls by the board for the project to be stopped, "the widespread distrust of Iran's nuclear program and the risk of plutonium (being) diverted from this reactor for use in a (nuclear) weapon."

The full board on Thursday also will hear a report on the latest stage of a nearly four-year IAEA investigation into Iran's nuclear activities.

[Rasputin]

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog's board of governors on Thursday indefinitely blocked Iran's bid for technical aid for a reactor project over fears it could be secretly used to yield bomb-grade plutonium.


But diplomats said the ruling, which the International Atomic Energy Agency's board adopted by consensus after days of haggling between industrialized and developing nations, left a theoretical possibility of revisiting Iran's request in future.

In a compromise hammered out in negotiations ahead of the board meeting, Iranian requests for IAEA technical assistance on seven other nuclear energy projects judged not to pose a risk of being diverted to bomb-making were approved by the board.

Tehran says its nuclear energy agenda, anchored on enrichment of uranium, is limited to generating electricity or, in the case of the Arak reactor project, radio-isotopes for medical ends.

The United States, European and other allies fear the Islamic Republic's professed civilian nuclear program is a cover for building bombs to imperil Israel and Western interests in the Middle East, and are seeking U.N. sanctions on Tehran.

The Vienna-based session of 35 nation board, lasting through Friday, was also examining a November 8 report by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei delineating Iran's continued stonewalling of agency investigations dating back three years.

ElBaradei told the board meeting, however, that Iran had just agreed to let IAEA inspectors take further environmental samples from equipment where they previously found unexplained traces of highly enriched -- or weapons-quality -- uranium.

He said Iran also agreed to provide inspectors access to operating records at its pilot uranium enrichment plant at Natanz after a prolonged refusal to do so.

"These are steps in the right direction," ElBaradei said.

SUSPICIONS

"The earlier Iran takes the remaining transparency measures and addresses the outstanding issues, the earlier the agency will be in a position to provide the needed assurances that are key to restoring international confidence regarding the scope and nature of Iran's nuclear program," he added.

Some Western states on the IAEA board had sought to have Iran's case for safety expertise in building its Arak reactor, due for completion in 2009, explicitly barred for good.

Gregory Schulte, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, said a permanent ban on aid for Arak was effectively achieved.

"The Arak project was not deferred, not put on hold, it was removed entirely from the IAEA program," he told reporters.

"The removal ... reflects the board's continued concern about the nature of Iran's program and intentions of its leaders."

But to obtain consensus prized in the IAEA's global culture, the language used in the package of Iranian projects submitted to the board was ambiguous enough to denote "deferral," not outright rejection, of Arak, other diplomats said.

A source familiar with IAEA operations said deleting Arak from the approved list of 820 projects in 115 nations meant it could theoretically be resubmitted with the next batch of technical cooperation projects to the board in 2008.

"But most countries that this issue will just go away," the source said.

Diplomats from developing nations feared an explicit rejection would set a "politicized" precedent calling into question their chances of getting aid for atomic power programs they are pursuing.

IAEA board approval of such aid had been routine for many years until Arak raised a storm. Iran intends to bring Arak on line in 2009, whether it gets IAEA safety advice or not.

"If they help us, we will appreciate it. If not, we will do it by ourselves," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters shortly before the board announced its decision.

[Rasputin]

VIENNA (AFP)Iran has agreed to hand over records of its uranium enrichment work in a boost to UN efforts to determine whether Tehran seeks nuclear weapons, but diplomats and analysts said more cooperation is needed.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors on Thursday that Iran would finally provide the sought-after records.

Tehran had rebuffed previous IAEA demands for months, while pushing ahead with enrichment operations in defiance of a UN Security Council call for it to suspend the sensitive nuclear work.

Iran has also agreed to the IAEA's long-standing request to let its inspectors take more environmental sample swipes on equipment from a former military site at Lavizan, where enrichment work is suspected, ElBaradei said.

The Vienna-based IAEA is mired in an over three-year-old investigation into US charges that Tehran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

Diplomats said Iran, under the threat of UN sanctions over its nuclear program, was trying to parry charges that it has failed to cooperate fully with the IAEA inquest.

Iran says its program is a peaceful effort to generate electricity.

"Getting the operating records is a pretty big deal," said a diplomat with technical training and who is close to the IAEA.

The diplomat said the documents would help the IAEA confirm Iran's insistence that it is only carrying out research-level uranium enrichment at a facility in Natanz in the center of the country.

Uranium is enriched by centrifuges to refine out the U-235 isotope to produce what can be fuel for civilian nuclear reactors or -- at highly refined levels -- the explosive core of atom bombs.

A second diplomat said the IAEA had reported that Iran was not allowing the agency inspectors access to "the tail results" -- the depleted uranium produced at the same time as the main product.

"If the IAEA does not receive the tail results it lacks critical data for calculating the uranium and isotope balances," the diplomat said, referring to the method of verifying the level of enrichment.

Iran says it has not enriched over five percent, a level consistent with fuel needs. Uranium for weapons use is usually enriched to more than 90 percent.

David Albright, a former nuclear inspector who now heads the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security think tank, said the new Iranian steps were "a big deal because the Iranians have been so uncooperative."

But, said Albright, that concession alone is "not going to solve the IAEA's problems."

The new information is "not going to provide confidence that the Iranians are not going to suddenly accelerate work at Natanz" or that they are "not building an undeclared centrifuge enrichment plant," Albright said.

Another analyst who follows Iran closely, Mark Fitzpatrick of London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Natanz and Lavizan were "two of many areas in which the IAEA has asked additional questions."

He called the Iranian moves "a small show of cooperation, but I don't think it gets Iran off the hook in terms of meeting the Security Council mandate for full cooperation."

ElBaradei told his board that limited cooperation by Iran had blocked the IAEA from making "further progress" on clearing up questions about Tehran's nuclear program, including the scope of its enrichment work.

The IAEA chief said the access to Natanz and the Lavizan equipment were "steps in the right direction" but that they should be followed in the immediate future by "additional measures."

The IAEA on Thursday had shelved indefinitely Iran's request for technical help in building a nuclear reactor that the United States fears could provide plutonium for weapons.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran would still press on with its heavy-water reactor in Arak, which Tehran says is to produce medical isotopes.

[Rasputin]

MOSCOW - Russia has begun delivery of Tor-M1 air defense missile systems to Iran, a Defense Ministry official said Friday, confirming that Moscow would proceed with arms deals with Tehran in spite of Western criticism.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue, declined to specify when the deliveries had been made and how many systems had been delivered.

Ministry officials have previously said Moscow would supply 29 of the sophisticated missile systems to Iran under a $700 million contract signed in December, according to Russian media reports.

The United States called on all countries last spring to stop all arms exports to Iran, as well as ending all nuclear cooperation with it to put pressure on Tehran to halt uranium enrichment activities. Israel, too, has severely criticized arms deals with Iran.

Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the United States and its allies suspect Iran is trying to develop weapons.

The U.N. Security Council, where Russia is a veto-wielding permanent member, is currently stalemated on the severity of sanctions on Iran for defying its demand to cease enrichment.

The Tor-M1 deal, involving conventional weapons, does not violate any international agreements.

Russian officials say the missiles are purely defensive weapons with a limited range.

According to the Interfax news agency, the Tor-M1 system can identify up to 48 targets and fire at two targets simultaneously at a height of up to 20,000 feet.

Russian media have reported previously that Moscow had conducted talks on selling even more powerful long-range S-300 air defense missiles, but Russian officials have denied that.

[Rasputin]

PARIS (Reuters) - The world's focus on Iran's nuclear programme, which many fear could produce nuclear weapons, has made it ignore human rights abuses there, Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi said.

In an interview published on Friday in the French newspaper Les Echos, the Iranian lawyer said democracy in her country was "non-existent" under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government.

"For the past two years, the whole world has forgotten human rights in Iran," Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, was quoted as saying.

"Fearing for its own security, the international community has turned away from the problem of human rights in Iran to concentrate on the nuclear programme," she told Les Echos.


Iran has been referred to the United Nations Security Council for failing to allay fears that it is trying to produce nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian atomic programme.

It says it only wants to generate electricity, but the United States and the European Union's top powers are pushing for sanctions against Tehran.

Ebadi said the world did not trust Tehran because it was not democratic but the Iranian people should not suffer as a result.

"Ahmadinejad's government does not respect human rights inside the country but it is unfair to make the population pay the price for all its faults," she said.

Iran's rights record is routinely criticised by Western governments, which successfully campaigned for the execution of women by stoning to be stopped.