Regime's News Agency claims: International consensus against Iran fails

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On Saturday, Western countries failed to win an international consensus against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors meeting in Vienna and were forced to pass a resolution on Iran through a vote.

Most of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries on the IAEA Board along with Russia and China refused to vote for the resolution drafted by the European Union.

Iranian nuclear negotiator Javad Vaidi told reporters after the vote that that there is no international concern about Iran’s nuclear program.

Vaidi said the threat to immediately refer Iran to the UN Security Council was torpedoed in the approved resolution.


The vote showed that, despite Western countries’ claims, the dispute over the Iranian nuclear program is just a politicized issue, he observed.

The United States, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Argentina, Belgium, Ghana, Ecuador, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Slovakia, Japan, Peru, Singapore, South Korea, and India voted for the resolution.

Pakistan, Algeria, Yemen, Brazil, China, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Vietnam abstained, while Venezuela voted against the resolution. READ MORE

The resolution is in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which clearly states that all signatories have the right to make use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

With 22 votes for the resolution, 12 abstentions and only one vote against, the outcome highlighted the split between Western nations and developing nations led by Russia, China, and South Africa, which disagree with Washington and Europe on how to deal with Iran’s nuclear activities.

China and Russia strongly opposed the EU's proposed resolution. India, which had originally opposed the EU resolution, inexplicably voted for it.

Russia and China have long opposed efforts to refer Iran's nuclear dossier to the Security Council.

Both countries fear a UN referral will cause the standoff over Iran's program to escalate into an international crisis.

The EU resolution requires Tehran to be reported to the Security Council, but at an unspecified date -- watering down an earlier demand from the Europeans for an immediate referral.

This means Iran would most likely not be referred to the Council until the IAEA Board meets in November, diplomats say.

The resolution, which diplomats said was prepared in close consultation with Washington, says Iran's "many failures and breaches" of its NPT Safeguards Agreement "constitute non-compliance" with the pact.

It added that there was an "absence of confidence" that Iran's atomic program was exclusively peaceful and this gave rise to questions "within the competence of the Security Council".

For two years, the EU's three biggest powers -- France, Britain and Germany -- have tried to persuade Iran to give up its right to uranium enrichment, a demand which runs counter to the NPT.

Last month, the talks collapsed after Tehran resumed uranium processing and rejected an EU offer of economic and political incentives if it scrapped its uranium enrichment program, prompting the EU trio to join Washington in calling for the case to be sent to the Security Council.

On Friday, diplomats said the Iranian delegation showed some board members and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei two unsigned letters informing the IAEA what would happen if the EU resolution were approved.

One letter said that Iran would begin enriching uranium, a process that produces nuclear fuel, at the Natanz facility. The second says Tehran would end short-notice inspections under a special NPT protocol.

The vote provides us a clue as to how the UNSC will vote on the Issue. Iran did not get a no vote on the resolution by Russia or China. This has to worry Iran. It is also encouraging that India voted for the resolution.