J-10
06-17-2004, 08:44 AM
U.N. Admits Mistake in Iran Nuclear Report
June 17, 2004 — By Louis Charbonneau and Mark Trevelyan
VIENNA (*******) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog was forced to make an embarrassing admission Thursday -- that it had wrongly accused Iran of withholding information about imports of potentially weapons-related technology.
Iran seized on the admission as proof that it is providing full and timely information on its atomic program, which it says is purely for generating electricity but which the United States believes is a front for developing nuclear weapons.
The disclosure was made as representatives of France, Germany and Britain continued to meet board members of the nuclear watchdog in Vienna to strike a compromise on the wording of a resolution that sharply rebukes Tehran for poor cooperation.
A non-aligned diplomat said Iran's case for softening the resolution had been strengthened by the fact that mistakes had clearly been made on both sides.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a June 1 report Iran did not declare until April that it had imported essential parts for advanced P-2 centrifuges used to purify uranium for use in atomic power plants or weapons.
But the Iranians this week produced a tape recording of an Iranian businessman who imported the parts telling an IAEA inspector verbally in January.
"This was made in an oral statement at the end of a particular meeting with one individual whose English was not very clear to us... It's a fault that we did not pick it up, it was not fed to our system," IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said.
A senior Iranian official said this showed the charge in IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's June 1 report that Iran had provided changing and contradictory information was "completely wrong."
"This has been a big mistake," Hossein Mousavian, secretary of the foreign policy committee of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told reporters on the sidelines of an IAEA board meeting expected to rebuke Iran for patchy cooperation.
"It shows Iranian cooperation, Iranian information has been full and precise, on time, with no contradictions and no changes."
Iran welcomed the fact that the IAEA had corrected the error, which he called an "innocent mistake," but the report had tainted the whole atmosphere of the meeting.
"Unfortunately, this is late," Mousavian said.
He added that he hoped Britain, France and Germany would now make major changes to the draft resolution, which "deplores" inadequate Iranian cooperation.
TEHRAN WILL CAPITALIZE ON IAEA ERROR
IAEA inspectors have been probing Iran's atomic program for nearly two years since it was revealed that Tehran had for decades been secretly pursuing nuclear technology with potential military applications.
ElBaradei said the agency's error was a technical mistake and one that Iran could have helped to correct before it got into the report.
"You have to understand we work with thousands of papers and thousands of sites," ElBaradei said. "Everybody makes mistakes."
He said Iran had never reported the imports in writing and there remained a "lack of clarity" about Iran's centrifuge program, which appeared to be on a much larger scale than the tiny "research and development" program Iran insisted it was.
Washington dismissed the slip-up as minor and said it was suspicious that Iran had avoided giving information in writing.
"It's interesting that they only seem to give information to the agency orally and not in writing," U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in Vienna, Kenneth Brill, told reporters. "Why? So they can change their story when it's convenient."
ElBaradei said the incident did not change the overall picture and Iran still needed to make clear the full extent of its uranium enrichment program.
From (http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/*******20040617_125.html?GMAad=true)
June 17, 2004 — By Louis Charbonneau and Mark Trevelyan
VIENNA (*******) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog was forced to make an embarrassing admission Thursday -- that it had wrongly accused Iran of withholding information about imports of potentially weapons-related technology.
Iran seized on the admission as proof that it is providing full and timely information on its atomic program, which it says is purely for generating electricity but which the United States believes is a front for developing nuclear weapons.
The disclosure was made as representatives of France, Germany and Britain continued to meet board members of the nuclear watchdog in Vienna to strike a compromise on the wording of a resolution that sharply rebukes Tehran for poor cooperation.
A non-aligned diplomat said Iran's case for softening the resolution had been strengthened by the fact that mistakes had clearly been made on both sides.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a June 1 report Iran did not declare until April that it had imported essential parts for advanced P-2 centrifuges used to purify uranium for use in atomic power plants or weapons.
But the Iranians this week produced a tape recording of an Iranian businessman who imported the parts telling an IAEA inspector verbally in January.
"This was made in an oral statement at the end of a particular meeting with one individual whose English was not very clear to us... It's a fault that we did not pick it up, it was not fed to our system," IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said.
A senior Iranian official said this showed the charge in IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's June 1 report that Iran had provided changing and contradictory information was "completely wrong."
"This has been a big mistake," Hossein Mousavian, secretary of the foreign policy committee of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told reporters on the sidelines of an IAEA board meeting expected to rebuke Iran for patchy cooperation.
"It shows Iranian cooperation, Iranian information has been full and precise, on time, with no contradictions and no changes."
Iran welcomed the fact that the IAEA had corrected the error, which he called an "innocent mistake," but the report had tainted the whole atmosphere of the meeting.
"Unfortunately, this is late," Mousavian said.
He added that he hoped Britain, France and Germany would now make major changes to the draft resolution, which "deplores" inadequate Iranian cooperation.
TEHRAN WILL CAPITALIZE ON IAEA ERROR
IAEA inspectors have been probing Iran's atomic program for nearly two years since it was revealed that Tehran had for decades been secretly pursuing nuclear technology with potential military applications.
ElBaradei said the agency's error was a technical mistake and one that Iran could have helped to correct before it got into the report.
"You have to understand we work with thousands of papers and thousands of sites," ElBaradei said. "Everybody makes mistakes."
He said Iran had never reported the imports in writing and there remained a "lack of clarity" about Iran's centrifuge program, which appeared to be on a much larger scale than the tiny "research and development" program Iran insisted it was.
Washington dismissed the slip-up as minor and said it was suspicious that Iran had avoided giving information in writing.
"It's interesting that they only seem to give information to the agency orally and not in writing," U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in Vienna, Kenneth Brill, told reporters. "Why? So they can change their story when it's convenient."
ElBaradei said the incident did not change the overall picture and Iran still needed to make clear the full extent of its uranium enrichment program.
From (http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/*******20040617_125.html?GMAad=true)