Reject Iran's Nuclear Tour Offer, Invitees Told

Global Security Newswire, China, Russia and the European Union are being quietly pressed not to send representatives on a proposed tour this month of Iranian nuclear facilities, Western diplomats told Reuters yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 5).

Iran offered the nuclear sites visit only to specific countries ahead of multilateral talks scheduled for later this month between Tehran and U.N. powers China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. By sending diplomats on the tour, the diplomats said, Beijing and Moscow could divide the six negotiating states on the Iran nuclear standoff.

The four Western nations have pressed the Middle Eastern nation to curb its uranium enrichment program, which they suspect is geared toward weapons development. Iran has defended its nuclear ambitions as strictly peaceful and steadfastly rejected calls to suspend its enrichment effort.

"We would be disappointed if Russia, or China or the European Union were to go," said one high-level Western diplomat based in New York.

"Some may want to go," the official said. "We certainly would not be encouraging people to go. Indeed we would be discouraging people from going."

It remained uncertain how China and Russia would respond to Iran's offer, other diplomats said. They were persuaded last summer to join the U.N. Security Council's three other permanent members in supporting a fourth sanctions resolution aimed at pressuring Iran to curb its disputed nuclear work. Iran offered nuclear site tours to Brazil and Turkey, which voted against the resolution, while the four Western powers and certain other backers of the measure were not invited.

Other states to receive invitations included Algeria, Brazil, Cuba, Egypt and Venezuela, along with the Arab League, diplomats said. Australia and Japan were among the states left off the list.

Monitoring nuclear facilities is the responsibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency, not of the U.N. nuclear watchdog ambassadors to whom the tour was offered, the European Union indicated yesterday. Hungary, the bloc's current president, said EU member states would together deliver a formal response to Iran's invitation with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

"We haven't answered the letter," a European Commission spokesman said. "But what we want to underline is that there is a process going on and it is for the IAEA to inspect the Iranian nuclear facilities ... . They have people to inspect them" (Pawlak/Charbonneau, Reuters I, Jan. 5).

U.S. sanctions have prevented Iraq from sending $200 million or more to Iran for purchased electricity, Reuters reported yesterday (El Gamal/Kami, Reuters II, Jan. 5).