Nahmyo Thomas
Newswire21.org
Iranian leaders agreed to open their newly-disclosed uranium enrichment facility to inspection after world leaders threatened sanctions during talks in Geneva..
Representatives told officials from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - US, Britain, France, Russia and China - plus Germany, that Iran will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to view their nuclear site. The inspections will take place within two weeks, according to sources who spoke to The New York Times, which also reported that Iran agreed to export nuclear materials for processing.
Exporting the materials would assure the international community the uranium would be converted into materials used in energy generation instead of weapons.
President Obama said Iran must follow through on its promises. "Our patience is not unlimited," he told reporters.
The US and its allies confronted Iran on allegations of using the facility to develop nuclear weapons. Iran, however, defended their right to develop nuclear energy and maintained that it was strictly being used for civilian energy development.
Knowledge of the secret facility, which is suspected to be near Qom, came less than a week ago. The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei said that Iran acted unlawfully by hiding their second uranium plant.
"Iran was supposed to inform us on the day it was decided to construct the facility. They have not done that," he told CNN-IBN.
Two days after the disclosure of the facility, Iran conducted three rounds of successful missile tests for the upgraded medium range Shahab-3 and Sajjil missiles capable of reaching up to 1,200 miles. These missiles could target Israel, parts of Europe and US military bases in the Middle East.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hasan Qashqavi denied that the tests had anything to do with the recent tensions over the uranium site.
ElBaradei admitted that the IAEA didn't have complete evidence that Iran was using the new facility to develop nuclear weapons. This makes diplomatic proceedings even more important after the US wrongfully accused Iraq of developing weapons of mass destruction in 2003.
Prior Sanctions
The international community did, however, threaten to add economic sanctions
if Iran didn't take significant steps in curbing their nuclear actions. In
previous responses to Iran's nuclear program, the UN issued three sets of
sanctions occurring in December 2006, March 2007 and March 2008.
"It's fine to be defiant, but Iran does not want to be isolated," said one European official.
The US and Iran also took rare initiative in Geneva by meeting separately for the first time since the Iranian Revolution. They engage in bilateral discussions over the nuclear program, but no details of their meeting were released.
According to a CNN report, David Albright, former weapons inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security said that "for the United States and Iran to sit down finally and start to talk about the significant differences between the two countries is extremely important, and I think it's long overdue."
A second meeting was scheduled for later in October.
