02/02/2006 - Vienna, Austria
— Somewhere out there, the only winners
in the current conflict over Iran's nuclear
programme are rubbing their hands with glee.
They love hearing about the "inalienable
right" to build nuclear power plants.
They love watching nuclear superpowers try
to bully non-nuclear states into agreeing
not to develop nukes, yet fail to explain
why they themselves haven't gotten rid of
theirs. They love seeing nuclear weapons
being presented as the measure of a country's
greatness. That's because the only winners
in this conflict sell the stuff that makes
all this war drumming possible. They sell
nuclear power plants.They build nuclear
weapons.
Greenpeace learned late last night, through
a leaked document, that the International
Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governers
will almost certainly vote today* to report
Iran to the UN Security Council over allegations
that it is pursuing a programme to acquire
nuclear weapons. This is a grave mistake.
*Update Friday, February 3, 2006- An impasse
on the draft resolution on Iran proposed
by France, Germany and Britain shows that
there remain divisions within the IAEA Board
on whether or not the best way to deal with
Iran is to report them to the UN Security
Council.
“IAEA head Mr ElBaradei said earlier today
that he believed the Iran issue was not
yet a crisis but reporting it to the UN
Security Council would in fact create one,"
said Greenpeace nuclear analyst William
Peden from IAEA headquarters in Vienna.
“It will greatly hamper Agency inspectors
in their quest to resolve outstanding issues
concerning Iran's nuclear programme. Iran
could easily take the wind out of the sails...by
announcing a re-suspension of enrichment
and reprocessing activities to allow negotiations
to proceed”
We hope that with overnight contemplation
cooler heads will prevail and that more
time will be given for the diplomatic route
to be pursued.
Greenpeace is opposed to any nation acquiring
nuclear technology and nuclear weapons,
including Iran. But we believe the best
way to ensure that doesn't happen is for
the IAEA to have continued access to Iranian
facilities. Iran has already made clear
that if the matter goes to the Security
Council it will restrict inspections and
no longer comply with requests to reveal
information above and beyond what is legally
required under existing treaty obligations.
As past situations have shown, in particular
in Iraq, any action that restricts inspections
and that closes opportunities to rebuild
confidence can only lead to a confidence
vacuum. And where hard evidence is not available,
warmongers on all sides exploit the currency
of fear and speculation.
The UN Security Council is simply not the
right body to resolve a conflict over whether
a country has a right to a nuclear programme
or not. The Security Council has failed
to live up to its Charter obligations to
minimize human and economic resources spent
on armaments, or to advance the goal of
a Middle East nuclear free zone. Instead
the permanent members (who are permanent
members precisely because they have nuclear
weapons) have participated in arms races
and weapons profiteering, stubbornly refusing
to comply with treaty commitments to eliminate
their nuclear arsenals. Given this record,
how can the Security Council resolve the
Iran crisis?
Given the failure to treat the nuclear
weapons programmes of other countries with
the same vigilance as Iran's, how can the
accusation of hypocrisy not have a ring
of truth?
The only solution to this crisis is a Nuclear
Free Zone in the Middle East. It's a vital
first step towards removing all nuclear
proliferation risks in the region, as well
as providing the essential security guarantees
from nuclear weapons states outside the
region.
That means an end not only to existing
and nascent nuclear weapons programmes,
but an end to nuclear power as well.
Iran insists that it is simply exercising
its rights under the terms of the Nuclear
Non-proliferation Treaty to develop "peaceful
nuclear technology." There is no such
thing as peaceful nuclear technology. Once
a country has a nuclear power programme
it is possible for it to develop a weapons
programme. That's as true for Germany, Japan
and Brazil as it is for Iran.
Our position on Iran is the same as that
for all countries with nuclear power or
nuclear weapons - the ONLY basis for peace,
security and sustainable development is
to abandon nuclear programmes; and to phase
out nuclear power in favour of sustainable
renewable technologies - in other words,
a nuclear-free world.
Iran has an opportunity to stop this slide
toward war by calling for a regional nuclear-free
zone in the Middle East. The international
community has an opportunity to stop this
slide toward war by pursuing exactly the
same thing.
The current path is lose-lose for everyone
except the makers of nuclear weapons and
the peddlers of nuclear power.
