Too late to halt Iran's N-bomb, EU is told
Pastor Dale Morgan
February 12, 2007 11:42 PM ET*
Too late to halt Iran's N-bomb, EU is told*
Financial Times
Iran will be able to develop enough weapons-grade material for a nuclear
bomb and there is little that can be done to prevent it, an internal
European Union document has concluded.
In an admission of the international community's failure to hold back
Iran's nuclear ambitions, the document – compiled by the staff of Javier
Solana, EU foreign policy chief – says the atomic programme has been
delayed only by technical limitations rather than diplomatic pressure.
"Attempts to engage the Iranian administration in a negotiating process
have not so far succeeded," it states.
The downbeat conclusions of the "reflection paper" – seen by the
Financial Times – are certain to be seized on by advocates of military
action, who fear that Iran will be able to produce enough fissile
material for a bomb over the next two to three years. Tehran insists its
purposes are purely peaceful.
"At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to
enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons programme," says the
paper, dated February 7 and circulated to the EU's 27 national
governments ahead of a foreign ministers meeting yesterday.
"In practice . . . the Iranians have pursued their programme at their
own pace, the limiting factor being technical difficulties rather than
resolutions by the UN or the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"The problems with Iran will not be resolved through economic sanctions
alone."
The admission is a blow to hopes that a deal with Iran can be reached
and comes at a sensitive time, when tensions between the US and Tehran
are rising. Its implication that sanctions will prove ineffective will
also be unwelcome to EU diplomats. Only yesterday the bloc agreed on how
to apply United Nations sanctions on Tehran, overcoming a dispute
between Britain and Spain over Gibraltar.
Iran has set up several hundred centrifuges to enrich uranium, a process
that can yield both nuclear fuel and weapons-grade material. But
analysts say that Iran is behind schedule on plans to install 3,000
centrifuges to produce enriched uranium on a larger scale.
Last year Ernst Uhrlau, the head of German intelligence, said Tehran
would not be able to produce enough material for a nuclear bomb before
2010 and would only be able to make it into a weapon by about 2015.
The EU document is embarrassing for advocates of negotiations with Iran,
since last year it was Mr Solana and his staff who spearheaded talks
with Tehran on behalf of both the EU and the permanent members of the UN
Security Council.
The paper adds that Tehran's rejection of the offer put forward by Mr
Solana "makes it difficult to believe that, at least in the short run,
[Iran] would be ready to establish the conditions for the resumption of
negotiations".