Iran-IAEA agreement leaves no room for Security Council

15 July 2007

TEHRAN - Four Iranian political analysts have said that Iran’s nuclear dossier should be removed from the UN Security Council agenda and returned to the International Atomic Energy Agency since the recent Iran-IAEA talks reconfirmed that Iran’s nuclear activities are peaceful.

A delegation from the IAEA, led by agency deputy director Olli Heinonen, held three rounds of talks with Iranian nuclear negotiators in Tehran on Wednesday and Thursday to draw up a modality plan to clear up the remaining ambiguities about Iran’s nuclear activities.

Negotiators from Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog announced that they had taken “serious and substantial steps” toward resolving the UN nuclear watchdog’s remaining technical questions after the talks.

The Mehr News Agency sought the views of three political analysts and an MP on the outcome of the recent nuclear negotiations on Saturday. MP Ahmad Avaii of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee said, “By now the West should have realized that Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons, and it should drop this issue from its dialogue with the country.”

UN resolutions and sanctions cannot halt Iran’s nuclear activities, and the Islamic Republic has proven that it is able to acclimatize to the pressure, he stated.

Former Iranian ambassador to the IAEA Mohammad Kiarashi said that the constructive Iran-IAEA talks prove that the nuclear dispute can only be resolved if the dialogue continues and Iran’s nuclear dossier is returned to the agency.

“The UN Security Council is not an appropriate body for resolving the dispute,” he added.

Yadollah Eslami, the secretary general of the association of former MPs, lauded Iran’s steps to regain the IAEA’s trust through negotiations, but noted that Iran still has a long way to go to return the nuclear dossier to Vienna from New York.

International affairs expert Hassan Beheshtipur said Iran’s new approach in its talks with the IAEA has blunted the sharp anti-Iranian edge of IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei’s reports.

ElBaradei’s two-edged reports have always been the most significant pretext used by the UN Security Council when it has attempted to form a consensus against Iran in order to take action against the country, Beheshtipur added.

If the talks continue in a positive direction, as is currently the case, they will surely have a good affect on the examination of Iran’s nuclear dossier at the UN Security Council, he opined.