Iranian situation 'without brakes'

Monday, 26 February 2007 Six leading world powers met in London today to discuss Iran's failure to meet UN Security Council (SC) demands to suspend uranium enrichment activities.

The SC placed financial and trade restrictions on Iran on 23 December, demanding suspension of "work on all heavy water-related projects" and of "all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development" with a deadline of 60 days.

However, construction continued at the Arak heavy-water reactor, and Iran proudly publicised the continuation of work to complete the Natanz uranium enrichment facility. The country has nearly completed the installation of two more 164-centrifuge uranium enrichment cascades, in addition to two similar cascades already installed underground, and the two-cascade pilot plant on the surface.

On 22 February, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed Elbaradei, circulated his six-page report on the matter among SC officials. The five permanent members of the SC: China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA, met with Germany in London to consider further sanctions.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said his country would never stop its enrichment programme: "The train of the Iranian nation is without brakes and a reverse gear. We dismantled the reverse gear and brakes of the train and threw them away some time ago."

The American response, from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was: "They don't need a reverse gear, they need a stop button." Vice Presient Dick Cheney separately said that "all options" were on the table, raising fears of military action.

Further information

International Atomic Energy Agency 

WNA's Iraq, North Korea & Iran - Implications for Safeguards information paper

WNN: Iran rebuked by sanctions