U.N. Nuke Agency Invited To Iran

Iran has invited an International Atomic Energy Agency team to Tehran to work on clearing up suspicions about its nuclear program, an IAEA spokeswoman said Monday.

Apparently calculated to blunt the threat of new U.N. sanctions, the invitation could increase pressure on the United States and its closest allies to reconsider their insistence that Iran freeze all uranium enrichment activities.

The main demands of the U.N. Security Council are an enrichment freeze, a stop to construction of a reactor that will produce plutonium and a requirement that Iran stop stonewalling the IAEA and answer questions about activities that could be linked to a weapons program.

The country's refusal to provide answers prompted the council's original call for a stop to all enrichment activities. Since December, the council has imposed two sets of sanctions and has begun informal consultations on new penalties.

Iran says it wants to develop a full enrichment program only to generate power and says it has the right to do so under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

During a meeting Sunday with IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, Ali Larijani, Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator, "invited the IAEA to send a team to Tehran to develop an action plan for resolving outstanding issues related to Iran's past nuclear program," said Melissa Fleming, an agency spokeswoman.

"The IAEA intends to send a team as early as practicable," she said.

That meeting was preceded by talks Saturday between Larijani and Javier Solana, the chief European foreign policy official. A European diplomat familiar with Saturday's talks said Larijani had asked for 120 days to answer the IAEA questions — a time span that Solana rejected as too long.

Asked what Solana considered a reasonable timeframe, the diplomat, who demanded anonymity in exchange for discussing the confidential talks, told The Associated Press: "Weeks — and not very many."

A diplomat familiar with Iran's nuclear file described the offer as "the first break in the stalemate in months."

The IAEA wants to know why there were traces of enriched uranium at a facility linked to the military, which could be a sign of a weapons program, and why Iran had documents showing how to shape uranium into a warhead.

The agency also is concerned about lack of documentation on Iran's past enrichment activities.

Multilateral talks with Iran broke off in August 2005 after Tehran rejected an offer of political and economic incentives in exchange for a pledge for long-term enrichment suspension and resumed its enrichment activities.

Since then, Iran has repeatedly said an enrichment freeze was out of the question, while the six world powers insisted they would accept nothing less as a condition for resuming negotiations.

U.S. and European diplomats and government employees told the AP last week that Britain, France and Germany are informally debating the idea of a compromise that would call for only a partial freeze — a stance that could put them at odds with Washington.

Germany was supportive, France opposed and Britain noncommittal, they said.

For the European allies, a compromise would placate important European Union members Italy and Spain and some smaller countries looking for more flexibility in dealing with Iran.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday dismissed as "chatter" discussions among U.S. allies about a new approach.

But an American official told the AP "there is some truth" to the reports. And the European diplomat said any serious attempt by Iran to answer outstanding questions "will have an impact" on the enrichment issue.
By George Jahn