06 September 2005 Blog Home : September 2005 : Permalink
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A European Union initiative to offer Iranincentives to abandon sensitive nuclear work that could give it the bomb is at an end unless Tehran halts uranium conversion, a senior EU diplomat said on Tuesday.
The diplomat told reporters the logical next step was for the International Atomic Energy Agency to report Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council, although it was a long way from discussing sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
"With the Iranian rejection of the European proposal and the restarting of the conversion plant in Isfahan, it did seem to us that the Paris process had ended," he said.
An Iranian change of heart on conversion "doesn't seem remotely likely," he added.
Like that was a surprise to anyone. Still, clutching at straws, at least the EU diplomats didn't completely fall for the Iranian spin:The diplomat said everything about Iran's long-clandestine nuclear program raised security concerns about its purpose.
"If there is a peaceful nuclear program, then where are the power stations?" he said, noting that Russia had agreed to supply fuel for Iran's only nuclear plant under construction.
Now then given that bribery didn't work what do our masters in Brussels, London, Paris and Berlin plan to do to stop Iranian nuclear proliferation?Diplomats said the EU was aiming for a "soft referral" to the Security Council which would be less serious than referring a specific violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to the supreme U.N. body.
"We don't want sanctions, but (for) the Council to issue a political appeal to Iran to resume the suspension, comply with the Paris Agreement and resume negotiations," another European diplomat said. "The idea is not to take it away from the IAEA but to support the IAEA."
A soft referral? Yeah that will really make the Mullahs quake in their boots and change their minds.