Excerpts from previous status reports, by subject
Removed on August 2, 2006
Iran move to the Security Council
In
the months after its nuclear dossier landed in the Security Council, Iran
gave little indication
of a willingness to comply with any demands made by the international
community. Iran spurned a U.N. Security Council demand that it halt uranium
enrichment by April 28—instead using the 30 days preceding this deadline
to accelerate its work. During this period, Iran ran uranium gas through a
cascade of 164
centrifuges at Natanz and for the first time used these machines to produce
3.6 percent enriched uranium—a concentration high enough to fuel a
reactor. Iran has since claimed to have achieved a level of 4.8 percent enrichment.
It also claimed to have worked on the more advanced “P-2” centrifuge,
a program Iran previously claimed to have shelved. Further, Iran continued
to limit international nuclear inspectors’ access to sites and refused
to provide inspectors with key documents regarding its black market procurement
of nuclear technology.
In response to Iran's actions, Britain and France circulated a draft resolution in the U.N. Security Council on May 3 that would require Iran to halt sensitive nuclear work or face possible sanction. Penalties under discussion in the spring of 2006 included a travel ban on Iranian officials, tighter export controls on dual-use technologies, limitations on Iranian students studying abroad and a ban on export credit guarantees to companies trading with Iran. This draft remained on the backburner at the Security Council pending the outcome of the latest diplomatic overtures to Iran. While the draft did not explicitly mention sanctions, it was written under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, which would make it mandatory and would allow for sanctions or the use of force in order to compel compliance. The resolution demanded that Iran halt uranium enrichment, end work on a heavy water reactor and resume comprehensive cooperation with the IAEA.
In early June 2006, Iran chose to step up enrichment work the same day E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana was in Tehran to offer a package of incentives—including nuclear assistance, increased trade, and the prospect that Iran might one day produce nuclear fuel domestically. The package was endorsed by the United States, Europe, Russia and China. Accepting the package would require Iran to freeze uranium enrichment and allow the IAEA to resume comprehensive nuclear inspections. Under the deal, Iran might one day be allowed to enrich uranium at home, but only after the IAEA concludes that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful—a process that is likely to take years. The United States and its partners had insisted on an answer by mid-July, however Iran refused to provide one until August 22.
The package also included an offer to talk directly with the United States. The U.S. willingness to talk marked a dramatic shift in policy by the Bush administration, which had previously preferred to back Europe’s negotiations with Iran from the sidelines. The change of course, according to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was intended “to give diplomacy its very best chance to succeed.” If it doesn’t, the United States hopes to have won Russian and Chinese support for punitive measures in the U.N. Security Council. Even without such support, Rice has said the United States would pursue “sanctions or other measures […] with likeminded states” outside the Council.