VIENNA, March 6, (Agencies): A senior US envoy accused Iran of “deception, defiance and delay” Wednesday in dealing with international concerns about its nuclear program, reflecting frustration over Tehran’s expanding uranium enrichment program and stalled UN attempts to determine whether Tehran has worked secretly on nuclear arms.

Joseph Macmanus, the chief US delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, also suggested that the US might push for tougher diplomatic action in the coming months.

While not going into details, his comments indicated that America might lobby the IAEA board to ask for a special inspection of Parcin, a facility that the agency suspects was used to test explosive triggers for a nuclear weapon, or that the United States would seek an IAEA resolution critical of Tehran.

International criticism of Iran has been relatively muted since last week’s nuclear talks in which Tehran showed interest in proposals made by the United States and five other world powers. While expressing concern about enrichment and the deadlocked probe, the six powers avoided tough language and mentioned the “useful meetings” that produced the proposals in a joint statement Tuesday to the 35-nation International Atomic Energy Agency board.

By contrast, the comments Wednesday to the same meeting by Macmanus were unusually hard edged, suggesting they were meant to signal that pressure on Iran over its nuclear activities would not diminish.
Without having to pay heed to Russia and China — countries in the six-power group that are traditionally softer on Iran than Washington — Macmanus concentrated on expressing the US view of Iran’s alleged failure to meet its international obligations and diminish concerns that it wants nuclear weapons.

Iran denies any such aspirations. But it hid its enrichment program for years and is rapidly expanding it, prompting suspicions that it was less interested in using it to make reactor fuel and more in its other use — producing fissile warhead material.

The IAEA also suspects that Tehran worked secretly on nuclear weapons, basing its assessment mostly on intelligence from the US, Israel and West European nations. Tehran says the intelligence is faked and refuses to allow the IAEA to resume a probe of the allegations until details of how that should proceed are worked out — a stipulation the West dismisses as a delaying tactic.

Repeating that his country had no interest in nuclear weapons, Iran’s chief delegate, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told reporters that IAEA chief Yukiya Amano was to blame for Iran-related tensions at the agency by issuing reports that “provoke” member states through allegations that his country denies. As for lack of progress in reopening the agency’s probe, “the source of the problem is not Iran” but the IAEA, he told reporters.

Asked about his views on Amano’s handling of Iran’s nuclear file, Soltanieh criticized his “political approach,” adding: “there have been some ups and downs.”

Macmanus, in comments to the closed meeting made available to media, focused on both Iran’s expanding enrichment program and refusal to allow IAEA experts access to sites, officials and documents it wants to probe in its investigations of Parcin and other suspicions of nuclear weapons work.

“We are deeply concerned with what appears to be Iran’s unwavering commitment to deception defiance and delay,” he said. “Iran ... has chosen to take further provocative actions.”

Asked about possible requests for a special inspection or an IAEA board resolution in the future, he later told reporters that “some adjustment might have to be made” in ways to address concerns about Iran, adding that will be taken up by the board “over the next several months.”

Iran can refuse a special inspection but that would set it up for referral to the UN Security Council. Like others before it, a resolution critical of Iran also would go automatically to the council, adding diplomatic pressure on Tehran.

Diplomats say the proposal made to Iran late last month by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, would obligate Iran to decommission its centrifuge plant at Fordo now making higher-enriched uranium and ship out the approximately 165 kilograms (about 365 pounds) it now has as well as allowing increased UN oversight.

With no such material stored and none being made, Iran’s most direct path to quick manufacture of weapons-grade uranium would be eliminated — about 250 kilograms of higher-enriched uranium are needed to be able to have enough material for one nuclear bomb with further enrichment .

In return, the six are offering to help supply and run Iran’s research reactor which is fueled by plates made from higher enriched uranium, coupled with what Iran wants most — relief from sanctions meant to penalize Iran for refusing to heed UN Security Council demands to stop all enrichment.

Meanwhile, the UN atomic agency’s board of governors on Wednesday approved giving Japanese director general Yukiya Amano a new four-year term without even resorting to a vote.

In 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-member board had needed six rounds of voting to select Amano for his first term, with developing countries worried he would be too pro-Western.

This time however the 65-year-old’s second term, which will start in December following approval from all 159 IAEA members in September — a formality — passed by consensus, meaning no vote was taken.

“I am deeply grateful for the trust that the board of governors placed in me once again,” Amano told reporters.

“The challenges are many and huge ... I like my job and enjoy my job, and I am very happy to do good in the world and make a difference.”

Amano’s highest-profile challenge in his second term will again be Iran, amid international concerns that Tehran wants to develop nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian atomic programme.

In addition, the IAEA wants Tehran to address what it suspects are indications that the programme also has — or at least had in the past — “possible military dimensions” aimed at developing the bomb.

Stretching back more than a year, the IAEA has held a series of failed meetings pressing Iran to address these allegations by giving the agency access to sites, documents and scientists, the latest last month.
The Obama administration program of sanctions and diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from gaining nuclear capabilities is not working, the top US commander in the Middle East told a Senate committee Tuesday, adding that Tehran has a history of denial and deceit and is “enriching uranium beyond any plausible peaceful purpose.”

Gen. James Mattis, head of US Central Command, said it still may be possible to use sanctions and other pressure to bring Tehran “to its senses.” But he also warned that he believes Iran is using the ongoing negotiations to buy time.

“That should not be in any way construed as we should not try to negotiate. I still support the direction we’re taking,” Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I’m just — I’m paid to take a rather dim view of the Iranians, frankly.”

Mattis’ blunt assessment comes amid continuing international worries and uncertainty over the purpose of Iran’s enrichment programs. Tehran denies any work on, or interest in, nuclear weapons, but international leaders believe its uranium enrichment is aimed at developing atomic weapons. The head of the UN nuclear agency said Monday that he can’t guarantee that Iran’s nuclear activities are peaceful unless Tehran is more cooperative and inspectors are allowed access to sites where they believe work on weapons development may be taking place.

Iran, meanwhile, has shown interest in suggestions that some sanctions might be lifted if it ships out its stockpile of material that can be turned quickly into the fissile core of a nuclear weapon and shutters the plant producing it.

The Obama administration has not ruled out military action to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And, under questioning from senators, Mattis said the US military has the ability to bring Iran to its knees.

“There are number of means to do that,” he said, “perhaps even short of open conflict. But certainly that’s one of the options that I have to have prepared for the president.”

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, asked what the US needs to do to prove that it is serious that it will not accept a nuclear-armed Iran.

“I fear that if they (Iran) continue to use negotiations to delay, that we will be at a point where they have nuclear-weapons capability, and then it’s too late,” she said.

Mattis also said Iran continues to pose an increasing security threat in Syria, where the Tehran government is backing the Assad regime against opposition forces, and that Iran’s Iranian Revolutionary Guard is in the fight and bringing in other foreign fighters. Asked whether the US has contingency plans to deal with the possible collapse of the regime, Mattis said there is “quiet planning” going on with other allies in the region.

He said chemical weapons sites in Syria are becoming increasingly vulnerable due to the chaos and civil war going on, even though as the fighting continues some weapons have been transferred to more secure locations.