EU Has a Common Stance Toward Iran's Nuclear Program, Resisting U.S. Pressure
The diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Mehr News Agency that all the European countries present in the session would support the policies of Britain, France and Germany toward Iran’s nuclear issue even though this doesn’t mean that they don’t differ on the subject. However, he said, these differences will be abolished through dialogue.
He said the European countries don’t not intend to draft a separate resolution on the Iranian nuclear issue.
Europe is optimistic about the increasing cooperation between Iran and the IAEA, he said, adding that the expansion of relations between Iran and the European Union (EU) depends on further steps by Tehran to ally concerns about its nuclear program. EU Resisting U.S. Pressure to Refer Iran’s Nuclear Case to UNSC
The latest reports by MNA correspondent at the IAEA headquarters show that there is a significant split between the European Union (EU) and the U.S. over the issue of Iran’s nuclear energy program which is to top the agenda of the Thursday meeting of IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna.
Currently, the expert discussions and political debates at the IAEA are continuing and it is expected that these will provide the prospect for the agency’s decision toward Iran’s nuclear energy activities.
The in-camera meetings held at the agency before noon clearly showed that there is a split between EU and the U.S. It seems that the union is acting independently toward Iran’s nuclear case, and is resisting U.S. pressure to forward the case to the UN Security Council. EU diplomats do not accept the justifications that Iran has breached the nuclear safeguards and try to use such terms as failure instead of violation.
Tehran believes that EU has a positive approach toward the issue of Iran’s nuclear energy activities and there has been no direct position from the union against the Islamic Republic in that connection. Analysts believe that EU has several motivations to be in Iran’s favor with regards to the nuclear issues of the Islamic Republic:
Firstly, EU believes that any pressure to refer Iran’s nuclear case to the Security Council could encourage Tehran to quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to decrease cooperation with the IAEA, just like North Korea. This, the union argues, might distort the credit of the agency.
Secondly, EU member states maintain that U.S. efforts to exacerbate the tension would do nothing to resolve the problem. The analysts of the union indicate the case of Iraq and Afghanistan to warn that technical and political crises must never become military and security tensions.
Thirdly, the Europeans are seeking to implement the pledges that their representatives made to the Islamic Republic as the Tehran Declaration.
Fourthly, analysts say EU is trying to use the example of Tehran Declaration to develop a new diplomatic initiative to defuse the international tensions. Analysts believe that this could be used to challenge U.S. unilateralism.
And finally, EU states stress that they should devise an independent and moderate approach toward Iran’s nuclear issues so as to mollify the concerns of both the U.S. and the Islamic Republic.
The diplomats are unanimous that the EU will have a decisive role in the Thursday meeting of the IAEA board and that any step by the union to approach either Iran or the U.S. would strongly undermine the outcomes of the meeting.
Still, among the EU members it is Britain that plays the most crucial role in view of the fact that London distanced itself from other members of the union and sided with Washington in U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. NAM Urges Avoiding Politicizing Iran's Nuclear Issue
Members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on Tuesday started their debates on preparing a draft resolution on Iran's nuclear energy program to be highlighted by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Thursday.
The draft of the statement which has been rewritten three times during the previous days is clearly against the issue of exposing Iran's nuclear issues to the Security Council.
Also included in the statement is the necessity to encourage Iran's high voluntary cooperation in order to continue the current course of affairs.
The NAM members have highlighted Iran's failures as stated in the report by Mohammad ElBaradei, Director General of the IAEA.
The countries have also criticized ElBaradei for the legal and technical problems in his report.
They stressed that it is not the duty of the agency's director general to allay the concerns of certain members of the IAEA such as the U.S., adding that ElBaradei should respond equally toward the opinions of member states of the IAEA Board of Governors. Latest Groupings
It was reported on Tuesday that Japan, that was previously following U.S. policy toward Iran’s nuclear energy program, has in its latest positions distanced from the White House. Still, New Zealand seems to have replaced Japan to join the U.S. camp to which Australia and Canada had already been a member.
New Zealand joined the U.S. camp earlier in the day just two days before the important IAEA meeting, MNA correspondent reported from the IAEA headquarters in Vienna.
Japan, Australia and Canada were the countries that initiated a resolution against Iran in a September meeting of the board in which the Islamic Republic had been obliged to sign the additional protocol of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and also to suspend its uranium enrichment program by the end of October.
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