Iran drives wedge into UN Security Council

Seeking to defuse threatened new sanctions, Iran has driven a wedge deep into the UN Security Council by agreeing to send some of its mounting pile of enriched uranium abroad.

The deal, brokered by Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will send hundreds of kilograms of low-enriched uranium to Turkey for further processing to be returned as fuel rods for use in a plant making isotopes for medical uses. Despite the deal, Iran insists it will continue to enrich uranium.

The Obama administration dismissed the pact as more duplicity from Tehran’s Islamic regime.

“Given Iran’s repeated failure to live up to its own commitments, and the need to address fundamental issues related to Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and international community continue to have serious concerns,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Washington suspects Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons and believes Iran has thwarted international inspections while delaying and deceiving the world about its true intentions.

Leading nuclear proliferation analysts also voiced doubts about Iran’s motivation in agreeing to ship some uranium abroad – a deal that it initially rejected last year.

“I share the skepticism and even cynicism that Iran might be just stalling for time,” said Ivan Oelrich, vice-president for strategic security programs at the Federation of American Scientists.

Turkey, which like Brazil is an emerging regional power and an elected two-year member of the 15-nation Security Council, hailed the deal.

“There will not be a need for sanctions,” said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, adding he hoped the swap pact “will be supported by world countries without any setbacks.”

But the pact amounts to a setback for the Obama administration. After the President’s initial offer of friendship to Tehran was rebuffed, Washington has been working in recent months to drum up support for tough new sanctions against Iran.

In recent weeks, China and Russia, both veto-wielding permanent Security Council members, have shed their long-standing reluctance and indicated a willingness to consider sanctions to force Tehran to abide by International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.

Last month, the permanent five – France, Britain, China, Russia and the United States – began initial drafting of a new sanctions package aimed at further isolating key Iranian figures and cutting fund flows to the Revolutionary Guards and other groups involved in the nuclear program.

“This is a deeply flawed deal, and at the worst possible time,” said a leading Israeli nuclear expert, speaking on condition that he not be further identified.

“The U.S. is no longer in the driver seat,” the Israeli expert said. “Iran gets credit it does not deserve for moderation, Brazil and Turkey get diplomatic credit notwithstanding the fact that they have done their utmost to undermine sanctions, as have China and Russia, and have gotten a meaningless gesture and a counterproductive one from Iran months too late.”

Israel regards Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat. Many observers believe Israel will launch attacks against Iran’s multiple nuclear sites unless international action forces Tehran to come clean about its nuclear program. When a similar deal – with Russia – collapsed last year, Iran said it would start enriching uranium to the 20-per-cent level needed for medical uses and, Monday, said that would continue.

Meanwhile, the French government, which had been calling for tougher sanctions unless Tehran cleaned up its nuclear act, cut its own deal with Iran. French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government agreed to free and repatriate Ali Vakili Rad, the assassin who murdered Shapour Bakhtiar, the last prime minister of the late Shah. Mr. Bakhtiar was in exile in Paris when he was killed in 1991. As part of the deal the Iranians released Clotilde Reiss, alleged to have worked for France’s spy agency while teaching in Iran when she was arrested last year.