[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

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Iran Still Has Nuclear Deadline, U.S. Says

October 23, 2003
The Washington Post
Joby Warrick

The Bush administration intends to press Iran to comply with an Oct. 31 deadline for opening the books on its past nuclear activities, senior officials said yesterday, as U.S. skepticism grew toward this week's surprise agreement by Iran to stop enriching uranium.

Iran's ruling clerics hailed Tuesday's nuclear accord with France, Germany and Britain. But U.S. and U.N. officials awaited the handover of new documents from Iran spelling out how and why the oil-rich nation built a number of sophisticated nuclear factories and laboratories in a rugged area south and west of Tehran.

The documents, which Iran promised to deliver to U.N. officials late yesterday, were considered a critical test for Iran, which until now has resisted demands to fully open its nuclear program to international inspection. The Bush administration contends that Iran is secretly attempting to develop nuclear weapons.

"The pressure is still on Iran," said a senior U.S. nonproliferation official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Nothing changes the fact that Iran still must fully comply and explain itself by October 31st," the deadline set by the U.N.-affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for turning over nuclear data.

With Tuesday's accord, Iran appeared to be seeking to avert a showdown over its nuclear program while avoiding the appearance of bending to U.S. pressure. Iran pledged to temporarily halt enriching uranium and several other activities potentially useful in developing nuclear weapons. It also agreed to submit to more intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities by IAEA officials.

Official White House reaction to the agreement has been positive, if guarded. President Bush, speaking to reporters yesterday aboard Air Force One en route to Australia, described the European initiative as "an effective approach."

But privately, administration officials have expressed skepticism, noting that the accord does not specify how long Iran's must suspend its uranium enrichment. On Tuesday, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rouhani, said that "it could last for one day or one year; it depends on us."

Some U.S. and European diplomats questioned whether Iran's intent was to isolate the United States diplomatically while buying more time to pursue weapons surreptitously. "It may well be a clever device, a way to divide Europe and America while giving the Iranians a public relations coup," said one Western diplomat familiar with the negotiations.

In Tehran, President Mohammad Khatami said the agreement demonstrated to the world "that we are sincere." Senior officials of his government promised to quickly deliver to the IAEA a full accounting of Iranian nuclear activity since the 1970s.

Diplomats and weapons experts said the depth of Iran's sincerity will become apparent over the coming days. They said Iran now faces more pressure to clear up serious questions, including the source of the traces of weapons-grade uranium found in two nuclear facilities this summer. Iranian officials deny having enriched uranium in Iran before June of this year.

"Iran now has to perform," said David Albright, a former IAEA inspector and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. "Iran's declarations about its past activities will be the first benchmark of its performance."

Rose Gottemoeller, a top nonproliferation official at the Energy Department during the Clinton administration, said Iran had taken a positive step by "making it clear they're not going to be another pariah state -- another North Korea."

"Are they also trying to buy time? Probably yes," Gottemoeller said. "But in a way this buys time for all of us. It gives us a chance to leverage those interests in Iran that say, 'We don't want to be another Pyongyang.' "