Nuclear agency to adopt weaker Iran resolution

VIENNA, Austria -- In a stinging setback for Washington, the U.N atomic agency is ready to support a European initiative to reward Iran's sudden openness about its nuclear program instead of censuring it for past cover-ups, diplomats said Wednesday.

The United States had hoped that the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency would find Iran in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty at its meeting, which opens Thursday.

But diplomats across the spectrum of the 35-nation board agree that no more than three nations -- Canada, Australia and Japan -- support Washington's stance.

The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the majority favor a resolution authored by France, Germany and Britain. Supporters of that initiative include Russia and China, they added.

The draft minimizes nearly two decades of covert nuclear programs that the Bush administration says point to an effort to develop nuclear weapons. It focuses on positive steps taken by Iran over the past few weeks to deflect international suspicions, including suspending uranium enrichment and agreeing to inspections on demand by IAEA inspectors.

Cooperation, transparency

The three West European sponsors of the draft "want to see continued cooperation and transparency from Iran," said a senior Western diplomat familiar with the resolution.

He said the draft would make clear that the board would not accept "repetition of past mistakes, deceit or tricks," and would urge Iran to immediately open its nuclear programs to pervasive inspections even before the agreement is ratified.

It would also ask Iran to maintain its commitment to suspending uranium enrichment -- one of the activities that raised suspicions when discovered early this year.

While the Americans have no dispute with those demands, they are dismayed that the draft glosses over activities such as uranium enrichment and experimental plutonium processing that they say violate the Nonproliferation Treaty, the diplomats said

The dispute surfaced Wednesday in Brussels, where Secretary of State Colin Powell and European foreign ministers failed to agree on how to deal with Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is for generating electricity as its oil stocks decline.

Powell said the West European draft may not be strong enough.

Both sides do not want Iran to develop nuclear weapons, but the EU favors "constructive dialogue," said EU foreign policy representative Javier Solana.

In a compromise, the American delegation in Vienna was said to be ready to give up on demands Iran be called to task by the U.N. Security Council. But it rejected the mild tone of the West European draft and its lack of a threat of future punishment if there is future noncompliance, said one of the diplomats.

That diplomat said the lack of stronger language also alarms IAEA director general Mohammed ElBaradei.

ElBaradei took the Iranians to task for effective breaches of the Nonproliferation Treaty in a report that also, however, concluded that there was no proof Iran had a weapons agenda.

The agency had no comment. But a diplomat familiar with ElBaradei's thinking said he was looking for "a strongly worded report" that stops short of asking for Security Council involvement.

Traditionally, the board makes decisions by consensus, but that appeared increasingly unlikely with no sign of a narrowing of the trans-Atlantic rift.

The diplomats said the United States was ready to push for a meeting that ends without an Iran resolution rather than agree to something it considered spineless.

The West Europeans fear too much pressure would turn Iran from cooperation to confrontation. But several diplomats suggested the dispute also reflected West European independence similar to that shown by the French-German attempt to scuttle the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Washington was particularly dismayed that Britain, its staunchest ally in Iraq, was siding with the French and Germans over Iran, they said.

The Americans see the draft as "another (European) chance to stick your thumb in the eyes of the United States."

Ahead of the meeting, an Iranian opposition group accused Tehran of continuing to deceive the IAEA. Firouz Mahvi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran told reporters in Vienna that a nuclear site toured by agency inspectors near Karaj was a decoy.

IAEA officials said they could not immediately evaluate the claims and said the oppositon group had a mixed record of accuracy. The U.S. State Department lists the group and its armed wing, the People's Mujahedeen, as a terrorist organization.

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