Compromise in offing over Iran nuclear row
Foreign Desk Report

VIENNA (Austria)—Iran has signaled it may grant access to sites linked to possible work on nuclear weapons and other demands from the U.N. atomic watchdog agency to avoid referral to the Security Council, diplomats said Tuesday.
The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said a high-ranking delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency was in Tehran on Tuesday to discuss details of a possible Iranian offer.
Besides seeking access to two military sites, the agency also wants to interview military officials thought to be associated with what Iran calls a purely civilian nuclear program. The agency is also asking for documents linked to Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.
IAEA officials view those three outstanding issues as crucial to their nearly three-year inquiry meant to test Iranian assertions that more than 18 years of clandestine nuclear activities first discovered in 2002 were geared solely toward generating power.
Iran’s foot-dragging on those points contributed to a decision last month by the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors to find the country in violation of provisions of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The board also passed a resolution clearing the way for it to refer Tehran to the Security Council as early as next month.
The diplomats, who are accredited to the agency, said that after signals from Tehran that it was ready to compromise, all three points were being discussed between Iranian officials and the IAEA delegation, led by Olli Heinonen, an agency deputy director general. Iran strongly denies assertions from the United States and its allies that its nuclear program is a cover for a weapons program or that its military is involved in atomic activities.
Iran must obey international rules over its nuclear programme and should not doubt the will of the international community to ensure it does so, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday.
Blair, due to hold talks on Iran soon with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said Britain and the United States would continue to put pressure on Iran over its nuclear activities, which Washington says — and Iran denies — are a cover for making atomic bombs.
“The position of Europe and America has been the same on this. We will continue the pressure,” Blair told a news conference. “They have to abide by the rules of the international community on their nuclear capability. They have to stop support for terrorism, whether it’s in the Middle East or elsewhere”.
“I think they would make a great mistake if they thought the international community lacked the will to make sure that is done,” he added. Washington and the EU have prepared the way for the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to send Iran to the United Nations Security Council next month for possible sanctions for violating international obligations.
Blair said Britain was “concerned” about the situation in Iran and said a recent IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear activities was “very significant.” Rice is expected to be in Paris on Friday and London at the weekend in a bid to hammer out a joint strategy for curbing Iran’s suspected nuclear arms programmes and persuading Tehran to resume negotiations.
Britain, France and Germany led negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme but talks collapsed in August. Iran insists its nuclear activities are solely for peaceful purposes. “We’ll pursue those discussions, but it has to be on the basis that people live up to their obligations under the IAEA rules,” Blair said. “Nothing less than full obedience to the rules is acceptable.” British-Iranian relations were further strained recently when an unnamed senior British official said London believed Iran had given insurgents in Iraq armour-piercing explosives and infra-red devices used to kill British troops there.
Blair said evidence pointed to Iran or its Lebanese Hizbollah allies as the source of the explosives but said Britain did not have proof.