Tehran's assurances facing 'litmus test'

WASHINGTON - The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency is preparing to release a report on Iran that could "reverberate ... around the world".

Mohamed El Baradei, who won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize along with his International Atomic Energy Agency, says Iran knows what it must do to satisfy his concerns and he will not extend the deadline for his next report on the nuclear programme beyond a March 6 deadline.

He told Newsweek that Tehran "might not seem to care, but if I say that I am not able to confirm the peaceful nature of that programme after three years of intensive work, well, that's a conclusion that's going to reverberate ... around the world".

"For the last three years we have been doing intensive verification in Iran and even after three years, I am not yet in a position to make a judgment on the peaceful nature of the programme.

"We still need to assure ourselves through access to documents, individuals, locations that we have seen all that we ought to see and that there is nothing fishy, if you like, about the programme."

Asked if Iran was buying time to build a bomb, ElBaradei replied: "That's why I said we are coming to the litmus test in the next few weeks".

ElBaradei said he did not exclude the possibility that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran might have another, more secret, nuclear weapons programme that was separate from the activities the IAEA knew about.

"And if they have the nuclear material and they have a parallel weaponisation programme along the way, they are really not very far - a few months - from a weapon."

Last week Iran resumed nuclear research after a two-year moratorium.

Iran, the world's fourth-biggest oil exporter, says it aims only to make power for an energy-needy economy, not build atom bombs. But it hid nuclear work from the IAEA for almost 20 years before exiled dissidents exposed it in 2002.

In previous reports to the IAEA board, ElBaradei said he had no proof Iran was engaged in weapons-related work.

The Security Council's five permanent members and Germany planned talks in London overnight on a common strategy to tackle the controversy.

ElBaradei said that despite comments by United States and European leaders, nobody wanted to take Iran to the Security Council. If they did, there would be a "graduated approach" towards sanctions, with Iran the biggest loser.

Yesterday, US senators said America might ultimately have to undertake a military strike to deter Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but that should be the last resort.

Even ElBaradei, often viewed as reluctant to have a confrontation with Iran, said: "Diplomacy has to be backed by pressure and, in extreme cases, by force ... We have to do everything to uphold the rules by conviction. If not, then you impose them."

- REUTERS