rssMan, When Mohamed ElBaradei Says You’re in Violation of Your International Obligations …
Thursday, October 01, 2009 at 11:21 am
- 5 Comments
Multilateral talks with Iran over its nuclear program are underway in Geneva. There are reports that there has been one breakout meeting between chief U.S. negotiator William Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, and his Iranian counterpart, Saeed Jalili, but nothing yet about its substance. But one substantive shift: Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says Iran’s belated disclosure of its hidden nuclear facility at Qom is a violation of Iran’s international obligations.
The New York Times:
Officials and experts said, Iran is likely to turn up with a narrow agenda on its nuclear program, but a host of other issues, including overhauling the United Nations; giving greater voice to non-Western countries; and universal nuclear disarmament. It laid these out in a five-page proposal last month, which was met with derision by Obama administration officials.
Iran is also likely to argue that it was not legally obliged to disclose its second enrichment plant, the one whose existence was made public last week. That contention will hinge on its “safeguards agreement” with the atomic agency, which originally said Iran was not required to disclose the plant until 180 days before it put fuel into it.
The agreement was later modified to require Iran’s disclosure as soon as it decided to build the complex. Iranian officials contend that its Parliament never ratified the modification — an argument that the atomic energy agency’s director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has rejected.
“They have been on the wrong side of the law,” said Dr. ElBaradei, who is normally circumspect and has said that fears over Iran’s nuclear program are exaggerated.
The paper might have added that ElBaradei in 2003 was a major thorn in the Bush administration’s paw for accurately stating there was no evidence to support Bush’s claims that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapons program. I initially messed up the obligations-violation question myself, so I’m not going to harp on the subject, but still.
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5 Comments
Comment posted October 1, 2009 @ 3:44 pm
How important is a technical violation like this, really? I mean, if you're not looking awfully hard for something to demonize the Iranian regime over. I mean, ok, sure, it's a violation. But if it was the US or Israel saying “we never ratified that part of the agreement” how big a deal would the press be making over this technical violation?
Look, this just isn't that hard. Iran hasn't diverted ANY fissile material. They aren't making a bomb. They CAN'T make a bomb without weapons grade fissile material, the diversion and creation of which would be obvious to the inspectors. They can't DELIVER a bomb because it takes several generations of weapons development to miniaturize one enough to be lifted by a missile.
Rather than contributing to the OMG WMD!! hype, it seems to me a responsible journalist would be pointing out that the time to freak out will be when either the IAEA reports a significant diversion of fissile materials or Iran kicks the inspectors out. Until one of those two things happens, there IS no weapons development program in Iran, and to say there is seems to indicate an agenda…
mikey
Comment posted October 1, 2009 @ 4:46 pm
I agree with mikey. There's no smoke here, so how can there be a fire? We can watch the lawyers argue over interpretations of international law, but frankly that's boring and still is not any grounds for sanctions or plans of aggression against Iran. Personally, I believe Iran does want nuclear weapons, and it will probably get one some day. So what? Iran is entitled to defend itself, and as Prof Walt notes, the Iranian leadership is probably pretty aware of what the response to an Iranian nuclear attack would be. As long as the US govt deals openly with Israel and India despite those countries' failure to sign/ratify the NPT, then it's kinda hard to point fingers and talk sternly.
The US failure to develop a regional strategy that includes the responsible facilitation of Israeli-Palestinian issues (which hasn't happened for the past 8-9 years) is a primary reason for concern. The US govt needs to stop developing foreign policy on a state-by-state basis and recognize its responsibility to act and talk rationally instead of treating Middle East nations like children, stop fanning the flames by pouring weapons into the Middle East, and adopt a more long-term engagement that includes Russia and China as partners.
Pingback posted October 1, 2009 @ 6:12 pm
[...] president on today’s Iran negotiations in Geneva: First, Iran must demonstrate its commitment to transparency. Earlier this month, we [...]
Comment posted October 1, 2009 @ 9:50 pm
Media refused to listen to the actual inspectors in 2003.Let's see if Obama has learned anything.
Pingback posted October 3, 2009 @ 8:44 pm
[...] Spencer Ackerman at The Washington Independent: Multilateral talks with Iran over its nuclear program are underway in Geneva. There are reports that there has been one breakout meeting between chief U.S. negotiator William Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, and his Iranian counterpart, Saeed Jalili, but nothing yet about its substance. But one substantive shift: Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says Iran’s belated disclosure of its hidden nuclear facility at Qom is a violation of Iran’s international obligations. [...]
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