Iran refuses to budge at Vienna nuclear conference

A stand-off pitting Iran against most others delegations at a 130-nation nuclear conference deepened today, with organisers adjourning the third straight session in as many days without breaking a deadlock over the language of the meeting’s agenda.

At issue in Vienna, Austria, is Tehran’s refusal to accept a phrase calling for the “need for full compliance with” the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

That position has delayed adoption of the agenda since the conference opened on Monday. Tehran argues the language could lead it to become a target at the meeting because of its refusal to heed UN Security Council demands to cease uranium enrichment and other parts of its nuclear programme that could be misused to make nuclear weapons.

In a move to placate Iran, conference chairman Yukiya Amano of Japan – who drew up the agenda – told the meeting his intention was to make clear in the text that “compliance with the treaty is compliance with all provisions of the treaty” – an allusion to commitments by nuclear weapons states to disarm.

Still, the fact that he immediately adjourned the session until late afternoon reflected the continued need for back-room negotiations meant to find a common position that would allow the meeting to begin taking up substantive issues.

And Amano said he would not reopen the agenda text for revision, a move that would likely harden Iran’s stance at the meeting.

Iran has said it is determined to expand its disputed nuclear programme and further defy UN demands that it freeze all preparations for enrichment, a potential pathway to nuclear arms.

Before today’s brief session, diplomats familiar with Iran’s nuclear programme said Tehran had recently set up more centrifuges at its underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, bringing the number of machines ready to spin uranium gas into enriched form to more than 1,600.

An International Atomic Energy Agency document obtained last month said the Islamic regime was running more than 1,300 centrifuge machines to enrich uranium at its Natanz facility.

Its ultimate goal is to have 50,000 centrifuges. That would be enough to supply fuel for what Tehran says is a planned network of atomic reactors to generate electricity – or material for a full-scale nuclear weapons programme.