Talks resume amid row over Iran's atomic goals

[Ghost Dog]

Source: Reuters

Mon 29 Oct 2007, 18:09 GMT

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran began a crucial round of talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday to clarify its nuclear activity amid disagreement between the IAEA chief and the West over judging Tehran's intentions.

IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei said on Sunday there was still no evidence Iran was trying to make atom bombs rather than generate more electricity as it says. France and the United States said on Monday all signs pointed to a weapons agenda.

After stonewalling the IAEA for years, Iran pledged to the U.N. nuclear watchdog in August to answer questions about past secret aspects of its programme before the end of 2007 in hopes of warding off a third, harsher batch of U.N. sanctions.

...

ElBaradei reports on the transparency talks to the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors in mid-November. If Iran has not answered sensitive questions by then, Western powers say they will move to have the Council adopt more far-reaching sanctions.

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Read more: http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnL29522281.html

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I'm not sure if there is any serious MSM coverage of this in the US. The parallels with pre-Iraq invasion propaganda just spin ever closer. ElBaradei insists that any evidence that Iran seeks to develop nuclear weapons should be presented to the IAEA, but it seems there is none. Now we have White House spokeswoman Dana Perino saying "This is a country that is enriching and reprocessing uranium, and the reason that one does that is to lead towards a nuclear weapon". Hmmm. I'm not aware that the Non-Proliferation Treaty in any way agrees with this. And it's the first time I hear the claim that Iran is reprocessing spent nuclear fuel... That would be very expensive and sophisticated technology, wouldn't it?

On this basis, "The Western Powers" must be very worried about, for example, Brazil... :sarcasm:

[mlevans]

1. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino saying "This is a country that is..."

"enriching and reprocessing uranium..." And we know how that movie goes, don't we? "This is a country that is seeking nuclear weapons...this is a country that sponsors terrorism...this is a country that hates us for our freedoms...etc." And we'd really like to think that Congress would be once bitten, twice shy, but both Republicans and Democrats seem to be making very different noises at present. Your dripping sarcasm, by the way, is exceptionally well placed.