IAEA delays vote to report Iran to UN Security Council
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-02-04 14:46

The U.N. nuclear watchdog put off until Saturday a vote to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over concerns it is seeking atomic bombs, as European Union powers lobbied developing nations to back the measure.

Diplomats said a clear majority on the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board favoured notifying the council on Iran but the EU held up the vote to try to hammer out a broad consensus with developing states without abstentions.

The delay arose from developing countries' attempts since Thursday to soften an EU-initiated resolution to report Iran after the Islamic Republic threatened to curb U.N. inspections of its atomic sites if sent to the Security Council.

An EU diplomat said later a deal with the 15 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) nations looked unlikely but the resolution would be tabled anyway for a vote when the Vienna-board reconvened at 0900 GMT on Saturday.

He said the EU rejected NAM attempts to delete a clause mandating that all IAEA investigative reports and resolutions, including one in 2005 declaring Iran non-compliant with nuclear non-proliferation safeguards, be passed to the Council.

"That was a no-no. Paragraph 2 is the holy grail for us," he told Reuters. "So in the end it looks like every country will vote on its own conscience. We expect 25 'yes' votes with about 5-7 abstentions and three 'no's'," he said.

Another Western diplomat said that to remove Paragraph 2 would have surrendered to Iranian intimidation. "The threat (to restrict inspections) is on everyone's minds but we consider it blackmail and if we give in to that, there's no end to it."

Diplomats from the EU trio of France, Germany and Britain said the threat would not deter their efforts to induce the Islamic Republic to come clean on what they suspect is military involvement in nuclear work and to stop enrichment of uranium.

But NAM states argued Paragraph 2 could be construed as ending IAEA oversight of Iran and opening the way to Security Council sanctions before the IAEA concludes probes into Iran's atomic energy drive, which it concealed for 18 years until 2003.

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