Iran Defends Nuclear Ambitions

Official Says Tehran 'Determined' To Pursue Legal Technology

(CBS/AP) 
The NPT is reviewed every five years at conferences whose consensus positions give valuable political support to nonproliferation initiatives. At the 2000 meeting, the nuclear powers committed to "13 practical steps" toward disarmament, but critics complain the Bush administration — by rejecting the nuclear test-ban treaty, for example — has come up short.

"We are greatly disappointed" by "unsatisfactory progress" toward disarmament by the big powers, said New Zealand's Marian Hobbs, speaking for a coalition of disarmament-minded states.

Rademaker said, however, the Bush administration is "proud to have played a leading role in reducing nuclear arsenals," via the 2002 Moscow Treaty, for example, under which the United States and Russia are to cut back deployed warheads by two-thirds, to between 1,700 and 2,200 each, by 2012.

That agreement has been criticized for not requiring destruction of excess warheads taken off deployment, or providing a transparent timetable and open verification of reductions.

Rademaker sought to focus attention instead on Iran, saying, "We dare not look the other way."

The Iran question hinges on the NPT's Article IV, which guarantees nonweapons states the right to peaceful nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment equipment to produce fuel for nuclear power plants.

That same technology, with further enrichment, can produce material for nuclear bombs. Tehran denies that is the purpose of its long-secret uranium-enrichment program, but in his keynote address Annan said states like Iran "must not insist" on possessing such sensitive technology.

Following Annan to the U.N. podium, Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, renewed his call for a moratorium on new fuel-cycle facilities while international controls are negotiated.

ElBaradei has proposed putting nuclear fuel production under multilateral control by regional or international bodies. Rademaker reaffirmed Bush's proposal for an outright ban on nuclear fuel technology, except in the United States and a dozen other countries that have it.

The Tehran government is negotiating on and off with Germany, France and Britain about shutting down its enrichment operations in return for economic incentives.

Meantime, Tehran has proposed establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, a move that would require Israel to give up its nuclear arsenal.

North Korea pulled out of the NPT in 2003 and said in February it has already built nuclear weapons. But the review conference is not expected to focus heavily on this first NPT defector, in order not to complicate efforts, via now-suspended six-party talks, to draw Pyongyang back into the treaty fold.