Reuters Interview with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell (Excerpts)

September 14, 2004

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HUDSON: On proliferation matters, regarding Iran, first of all, do you have a consensus among the IAEA Board to have a trigger mechanism for a final determination on referring Iran to the UN Security Council after the meeting?

POWELL: Well, as you know, the IAEA Board is meeting this week and we have seen some progress in recent days on a possible resolution that shows that the international community -- the people are concerned about what Iran has been doing with its nuclear programs.

I can't tell you whether or not the Board will act on a particular resolution until they have actually acted, but we believe that it's kind of a long pass, when the matter should have been referred to the Security Council. We believe that it should have been done a year ago. And we have watched patiently, and carefully, and hopefully over the past year to see whether or not Iran would satisfy all the concerns expressed by the IAEA and meet its commitments -- Iran's commitments -- to the European Union-3 foreign ministers. I don't think they have satisfied either party, and nevertheless, it's a matter that will be discussed this week in Vienna.

And we'll see what resolution does come out of the IAEA Board and whether it's prepared to refer it now, or whether they say, let's wait and see whether it should be referred in November. But I think we can't just keep having Board meetings with no action taken by the IAEA, which is an agent of the United Nations. And ultimately, if there is not satisfaction on the part of Iran, it has to go to the Security Council.

MOHAMMED: A Security Council referral could simply usher in another lengthy period during which you talk about what should be done about Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, and during which they would -- they could continue, conceivably, to pursue it. Why is that satisfactory for you?

POWELL: Well, we would like to see complete openness with respect to their nuclear program. But it is their responsibility to satisfy the international community that they are not developing a nuclear weapon. This is not hard to do: Full openness, no more hiding of things that are suddenly discovered.

But the way to handle this at this point is through the work of the international community. You know, the United States has been in the forefront of efforts to bring this issue to the attention of the international community. At the beginning of this Administration, we talked to the Russians about what the Iranians might be using Bushehr for.

We have talked to others to point out that we had evidence that certain things are happening that were not appropriate. And finally, the international community has recognized that there is a danger in what the Iranians are doing. And so, we will stick to the diplomatic track.

Now, how fast they could actually move forward toward the development of a weapon, and if that turns out to be their policy, and I believe it is, also shapes what approach you take to solving the problem. I don't think they are days or months away from such a development. And so, I think that we would like to see it stopped right away. But we still believe the best way to go about it is through the work of the international community, through the IAEA and the Security Council.

HUDSON: In the context of the diplomatic track, an Iranian official in Vienna says that Iran is ready to hold talks to reassure the United States that Iran's programs are peaceful. Is there any interest in the United States in pursuing such an offer?

POWELL: Iran has to reassure the entire international community, the IAEA -- all 35 members of that Board of Governors -- that its intentions are totally peaceful and that they're interested in nothing more than in nuclear power generation with a closed cycle on the fuel and no possibility of that program leading to the development of a nuclear weapon.

They have not yet assured the international community of that; and as Dr. ElBaradei has said in recent days, he doesn't know whether it is a program intended to produce a weapon or it is not. Well, there shouldn't be that kind of uncertainty in this matter. Iran knows what it has to do in order to remove that uncertainty, and that's what we're waiting for Iran to do.

MOHAMMED: You're not interested in bilateral talks with them?

POWELL: There is -- we just don't want to make it a U.S. and Iran issue. People are very anxious to do that. It is an Iran-international community issue. The fact that it was the United States that was is in the forefront of pointing out this danger is an important fact, but it is a matter for the international community to deal with. And we have ways of discussing it with Iran present in the room by our attendance at the meetings in Vienna.

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