UN’s IAEA Chief Picks Side Of Nuclear Iran Over West
IAEA chief warns against nuclear plant attacks
BERLIN - Threats to attack nuclear plants on suspicion they would one day make bombs could undermine the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said.
“Unilateral military action undermines the international treaty framework. We’re standing at an historic turning point,” Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Der Spiegel magazine.
A senior Israeli official said on Friday an attack on Iran looked “unavoidable” because U.N. sanctions seemed unable to prevent Tehran developing nuclear technology with bomb-making potential.
ElBaradei said a growing threat to peace was coming from proliferation and an increasing readiness to consider military action against nuclear targets regarded as suspicious.
Israel and the United States have not ruled out a last resort attack on Iran to smash its atomic programme, something critics including ElBaradei say could ignite the Middle East. The Israeli official’s warning was the most explicit yet.
Iran has said it is enriching uranium only for electricity, not weapons, and that the programme will remain under U.N. monitoring. Iran has hindered U.N. investigations and curbs the scope of inspections.
“The willingness to cooperate on the Iranian side leaves something to be desired. We have pressing questions,” ElBaradei said, alluding to intelligence reports that Iran has secretly researched ways of designing a nuclear weapon.
He said the Islamic Republic, which is deeply hostile to Israel, was “sending a message to the whole world: we could build the bomb relatively soon.”
ElBaradei did not elaborate on this point in excerpts of his remarks released by Der Spiegel on Saturday ahead of Monday’s publication.
A May 26 inspectors’ report said Iran not only appeared to be withholding information needed to clarify the intelligence allegations but indicated Tehran was making significant progress developing and running centrifuges, which refine uranium.
The IAEA added Syria to its proliferation concerns in April after receiving U.S. intelligence material including photographs suggesting Damascus had almost built a nuclear reactor in secret before Israel destroyed it in an air strike last year.
ElBaradei told a meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors on Monday that Syria had agreed to a June 22-24 inspector visit to examine the allegations, denied by Damascus.
Diplomats said Syria had refused IAEA requests to examine three sites other than the bombed one.
ElBaradei was quoted by Der Spiegel as saying the IAEA would push for access to “other places beyond the complex that was destroyed” and he expected “absolute transparency” from Syria.
(Reuters)
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Somebody please shoot this cocksucker.
Let’s get out of the UN ASAP!!
June 7th, 2008 at 5:30 pmThat is our tax dollars at work….
June 7th, 2008 at 5:37 pmThe International Atomic Energy Agency is as useless as the rest of the UN. If ElBaradei wishes to prevent Israel from attacking Iran he’d better do his job, stop their nuke program.
June 7th, 2008 at 5:38 pm“We’re standing at an historic turning point,”
Yeah we are. Is the world going to allow the psycho suicidal clerics to possess nukes?
June 7th, 2008 at 7:03 pmdoes everyone who works for the UN have the name muhammed?
June 7th, 2008 at 7:52 pmEl Baredei is just as much a threat to world peace as is his jihadi buddies. He’s a traitor to the world. It’s like having Goebels in charge of UN inspections during the 1930’s Nazi arms race.
June 8th, 2008 at 4:00 amBaradei is a lying, cheating, pro-Iranian, turncoat, traitor, cocksucker. What has he really done in the last few years to stop Iran getting the bomb, nothing. Why, because he is on their payroll. Fuck him and the UN
June 8th, 2008 at 6:23 am