China Urges Iran To Cooperate With Nuclear Watchdog
7 February 2006 -- Beijing today urged Iran to cooperate with the UN nuclear-watchdog agency and called for calm diplomacy to settle a dispute over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan also said that Beijing's decision to side with Western states in sending Iran before the UN Security Council was in accord with its basic principle of maintaining a nuclear-nonproliferation regime.
On 6 February, Iran officially notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it will resume uranium enrichment in response to the IAEA's vote on 4 February to report it to the Security Council.
The IAEA governing board told delegates that Tehran has failed to dispel fears that it might be using its nuclear program to develop nuclear weapons.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei today called for national "resistance" in response to the ongoing dispute, which many Iranian politicians have characterize as a Western attempt to hinder Iran's scientific development.
(AFP, dpa, AP, Reuters)
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On 4 February, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency approved in a 27-3 vote a resolution to report the matter of Iran's nuclear program to the United Nations Security Council. The key section of the resolution is Section 1, which states that the Board of Governors:
Underlines that outstanding questions can best be resolved and confidence built in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's program by Iran responding positively to the calls for confidence-building measures which the Board has made on Iran, and in this context deems it necessary for Iran to:
- reestablish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and processing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the Agency;
- reconsider the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water;
- ratify promptly and implement in full Additional Protocol;
- pending ratification, continue to act in accordance with the provisions of the Additional Protocol with Iran signed on 18 December 2003;
- implement the transparency measures, as requested by the Director General, which extend beyond the former requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol, and include such access to individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual use equipment, certain military-owned workshops and research and development as the Agency may request in support of its ongoing investigations.
COMPLETE TEXT: To read the final resolution, with late-hour changes highlighted, click here.
THE COMPLETE PICTURE: RFE/RL's complete coverage of controversy surrounding Iran's nuclear program.
An annotated timeline of Iran's nuclear program.