Iran Stops Cooperating with IAEA, Still Negotiating with Russia

The U.N. atomic watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, announced on Saturday that it had decided to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council because of the Iranian government’s stated intentions to resume nuclear testing. But the five permanent members of the council do not agree on how they should be involved in negotiations to ensure that Iran’s testing is not part of a plan to develop a nuclear weapon. The United States, Britain, and France hope to threaten Iran with sanctions in an effort to pressure the government to back down from its aggressive stance. However, Russia and China do not want to risk angering Tehran, so their inclination is for the council to play a limited role, with the IAEA continuing to negotiate with Iran.

But on Sunday the Iranian government ended all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA, stating that it will no longer allow surprise inspections of its facilities, and it will resume its uranium enrichment operations. Uranium that is enriched to a low degree can be used for nuclear reactors, which is the purpose Iran claims to have in its enrichment programs. However, highly enriched uranium is suitable for nuclear warheads, which is the purpose many world leaders fear Iran is covertly working toward. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi has said that the Iranian government is willing to negotiate in response to Moscow’s proposal that Iran shift its plans for large-scale uranium enrichment to Russian territory in order to allay suspicions, even though an Iran representative at the IAEA meeting a day earlier had dismissed that proposal as being "dead."

Ambassador John Bolton, former U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, has campaigned for years for Iran to be brought before the Security Council. "It inevitably changes the political dynamic when their nuclear weapons program has been considered in the Security Council, which is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security by the U.N. charter, rather than in a specific agency of the U.N. system," Bolton said Friday. "The Iranians know full well what they're doing, which is trying to acquire a nuclear weapons capability, and I understand why they don't want people talking about it in the full light of day."

In the last several weeks, the diplomatic debates at the United Nations have revolved around whether to "report" or "refer" Iran to the Security Council. The Iranian allies, Russia and China, have no problem with the IAEA reporting to the council about their dealings with Iran, but they feel that if the IAEA refers Iran to the council, it would imply that the IAEA was handing over control of the situation to the Security Council. Russian’s U.N. Ambassador Andrey Denisov said, "We and China can accept informing of the Security Council, which is quite normal. That is the right of the Security Council to get any information it needs. But not referral, not official submitting, not handing it to the Security Council."

The Security Council is the only U.N. institution that has the power to impose punitive measures such as economic sanctions, deploy peacekeeping missions, and allow or deny legitimate military action. Although countries sometimes ignore or refuse resolutions by the Security Council, when a country is taken to task by a ruling body created to maintain international peace and security, they are frowned upon by the global community.

In the case of Iran, the council could either make a public statement about the country’s actions without taking any steps to punish them, or they could demand that Iran stop its activities and threaten punishment if they ignore the warning. Punishments could include freezing assets, banning travel to and from the country, or imposing an oil embargo. However, China is adamantly opposed to any punitive measures. China’s U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said, "I think, as a matter of principle, China never supports sanctions as a way of exercising pressure, because it is always the people that would be hurt."

According to the IAEA decision announced Saturday, the council must wait until the IAEA’s Board of Governors meets again next month before considering what to do about Iran. Until that time, discussions about Iran’s activities will certainly take place outside the Security Council chamber. "This is going to be an ongoing process of many months," said Colin Keating, an analyst who once sat on the council. "It’s one in which there will be lots of swirling around and probably very few public meetings of the council, and a lot of the action will take place off stage."