UN Adopts Resolution to Close Probe on Iran’s n-activities

The UN atomic watchdog’s board Tuesday drew a line under a long-running probe into Iran’s past efforts to develop nuclear weapons, removing an important obstacle to implementing July’s landmark deal with big powers, diplomats said.

In July, the P5+1 powers (including the United States) agreed on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action-a deal to restrict Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of at least $100 billion in economic sanctions.

“The selection by the Board of Governors today … will start a new phase for co-operation between Iran and the agency”, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Reza Najafi, told reporters following the resolution was passed by consensus – that is, unopposed.

“At the same time, he repeated an assessment he made last month in that Iran worked on “a anger of activities relevant” to creating nuclear weapons, with coordinated efforts as much as 2003 tapering off in to scattered activities as much as 2009″.

An EU statement reflects the will to move on.

US chief delegate Henry S. Ensher was more critical.

Still, most of his comments were low-key and forward-looking, as the USA participated in drawing up the resolution ending the investigation along with the other nations that negotiated the deal with Iran, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

“This council cannot allow Iran to feel that it can violate our resolutions with impunity”, Power said, stressing the importance of sanctions enforcement for “a credible, enforceable nuclear deal”.

Just once the Vienna-based United Nations agency’s inspectors have confirmed that all the constraints are in effect will global sanctions battering the Iranian economy be lifted. “Closing the PMD [possible military dimensions] agenda item will in no way preclude the IAEA from investigating if there is reason to believe Iran is pursuing any covert nuclear activities in the future, as it had in the past”, Kerry asserted.

This could take several more years, and Tuesday’s resolution stated that the board will “remain seized” on the matter for another 10 years, or until the “broader conclusion”, whichever is sooner.

Questions continue to be raised about Iran’s weapons programs. However, Tehran always denied the allegations, saying the information was forged and misleading.

A confidential Security Council report found that Iran’s October test of a mid-range missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead violated a United Nations resolution banning ballistic missile tests by the country. Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee criticized the decision.

2 that Iranian scientists had experimented with nuclear-bomb technologies without ever taking the final steps needed to produce a weapon.

“Nothing has changed”, she declared.