Translated material
Atomic cruise
IAEA delegation travels from Tehran to Pyongyang
Yesterday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced the start of a summer trek to the two hottest nuclear spots on the planet. A representative delegation headed by Deputy Director General of the agency Olli Heinonen landed in Tehran. She will stay in Iran for two days and then head to North Korea. Preventing Tehran and Pyongyang from acquiring nuclear weapons capable of holding the entire world at gunpoint is the main goal of the IAEA.There has been real progress on the North Korean nuclear issue. Back in February, Pyongyang agreed to freeze the operation of the reactor in Yongbyon, and the next meeting of the “six” with the participation of the two Koreas, China, Russia, the United States and Japan is scheduled for July 18 in Beijing. But the Iranian issue is still at an impasse. The permanent members of the UN Security Council - Russia, the USA, China, Great Britain and France - are ready to tighten anti-Iranian sanctions if Tehran does not freeze uranium enrichment.
Commenting on the agenda of the agency delegation’s visit to Iran, IAEA Director General Muhammad ElBaradei emphasized that the mission “will discuss with the Iranian authorities ways and means to resolve outstanding issues.” He also expressed hope that Tehran “will take the opportunity to work seriously and promptly” with the IAEA. As for the DPRK, inspectors there, according to Mr. ElBaradei, intend to monitor the process of closing nuclear facilities, as well as “install cameras and other equipment that allows us to monitor them.”
The IAEA Director General called the six-party negotiations on the North Korean nuclear issue an example for resolving the situation around Iran. According to him, the February agreement with the DPRK on Pyongyang suspending its nuclear program in exchange for financial and economic assistance was reached due to the fact that “the parties decided to speak directly and the United States agreed to direct negotiations with the DPRK. I would like to see the same thing in the case of Iran: the resumption of negotiations between the “six” (the Iranian “six”, unlike the North Korean one, includes five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. - Ed. ) with Tehran.”
The resumption of negotiations has also been discussed in the Iranian capital in recent days. However, they do not intend to give in. “We are ready, in the course of conversations and negotiations, to remove any ambiguities that they (the West - Ed. ) may have,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday in Tehran. And he immediately added that the Iranian nation “strives to have all the rights and will not give up one iota,” meaning the right to develop its own nuclear program.
Thus, Mr. Ahmadinejad entered into an absentee debate with the Director General of the IAEA, who recently made an encouraging statement. Muhammad ElBaradei told reporters that IAEA inspectors saw in Iran “a slowdown in the process of installing new centrifuge cascades” for uranium enrichment. “This is something I welcome,” he noted. But Iran's president cooled his optimism yesterday with technical details. “The process of installing centrifuges can go slowly or quickly,” explained Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, adding: “No one should expect us to give up our rights and stop the process.”
“The statements of Iranian leaders that Iran will continue to develop nuclear technologies are on a par with the recent refusal of the Tehran authorities to allow IAEA inspectors to visit national nuclear facilities,” says Vladimir Averchev, an expert at the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. In a conversation with Vremya Novostei, he noted that “Tehran’s emphatically harsh actions and statements indicate its readiness for a new round of worsening relations with the international community. They are intended to provide the country with favorable conditions in the ongoing bargaining over the Iranian nuclear program.”
VN's interlocutor sees here direct analogies with the development of the situation around the North Korean nuclear program. “Pyongyang has long used the same scheme in its actions that Tehran is now using. And judging by the results achieved by the DPRK, it has produced certain results. Iran expects that sooner or later its interests will be taken into account. After all, as the history of Iran’s relations with the IAEA shows, Tehran’s sharp steps, as a rule, ended in finding a certain compromise,” Mr. Averchev recalled.
The IAEA delegation does not intend to limit itself to discussing with the Iranians the number of centrifuges Tehran has or the degree of uranium enrichment. After all, it consists of agency leaders, not ordinary inspectors. Moreover, according to Iranian media, there are no plans to visit nuclear facilities. The report of IAEA representatives will be of a political nature. According to Muhammad ElBaradei, the fate of the Iranian “nuclear dossier” in the UN Security Council depends on the results of the trip.