Iran, Israel and nuke fuel bank top issues at IAEA conference

VIENNA: The UN nuclear watchdog opens its 50th annual general conference on Monday, with Iran again topping the agenda as well as an Arab push to denounce Israel and how to guarantee reactor fuel supplies without allowing bomb know-how to spread.   

 

The week-long gathering of the 140 nations of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, founded in 1957, includes a three-day seminar on finding a way for nations to get fuel for their nuclear reactors but not the technology required to make atom bombs.     

 

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier proposed setting up uranium enrichment centres under UN control to end nuclear disputes like the one over Iran, the daily Handelsblatt said in an advance extract of its Monday edition.     

 

Steinmeier said such centres could be used by several nations and placed under control of the watchdog IAEA.   

 

"Interested countries like Iran could in this way obtain nuclear fuel for civilian use under strict control," Steinmeier said.     

 

"It could be financed by countries that claim the right to buy nuclear fuel," he added.      

 

Steinmeier said the IAEA had the right to build and run such a fuel bank.              

 

The IAEA conference comes with the United States seeking United Nations sanctions against Iran for violating a UN deadline, verified by the IAEA, for Tehran to halt uranium enrichment, which the West fears could be used to help develop nuclear weapons.            

 

EU foreign policy representative Javier Solana and Iranian top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani are at the same time pursuing a last-ditch effort to strike a nuclear deal that will lead to negotiations instead of sanctions.   

 

US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, former US senator Sam Nunn and Russian atomic agency director Sergei Kirienko will attend the nuclear fuel forum, as well as the conference. Iranian Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh is coming to the conference, IAEA spokesman Peter Rickwood said.       

 

Both the United States and Russia have announced their willingness to make nuclear material available for a fuel bank.      

 

"I want to make sure that every country that is a bona fide user of nuclear energy and that is fulfilling its non-proliferation obligations is getting fuel," IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a press release.           

 

On the Middle East issue, "it looks as if the pot could finally boil over this year," a Western diplomat said about Arab efforts to get a resolution passed at the conference on "Israeli capability and threat."        

 

In past years, Arab countries have attacked the Jewish state for allegedly possessing nuclear weapons and tried to pass this resolution, which asks Israel, which has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to place its atomic facilities under NPT safeguards.             

 

Israel neither confirms nor denies reports that it has some 200 atom bombs.         

 

The debate over this has given Middle Eastern states a chance to use the IAEA conference as a chance to vent their frustration at why Iran is being attacked for having alleged nuclear capabilities while the IAEA does not act similarly against Israel.     

 

Traditionally, a resolution is introduced but then withdrawn and postponed to the following year, in return for Israel agreeing to a call for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East.        

 

But a Middle Eastern diplomat said "this year will be different."    

 

The diplomat said that "many are fed up with double standards," especially as Iran has been referred to the UN Security Council.              

 

In addition, there are "regional circumstances," the diplomat said, referring to Israel's bombardment of Lebanon, which has made Arab nations furious.          

 

"Because of these things, it is only fair that Israel be put under the spotlight," the diplomat said.