Saturday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 9.24.2005:

UN nuclear body passes EU resolution on Iran

Louis Charbonneau and Francois Murphy, Reuters:

The U.N. nuclear watchdog passed a resolution on Saturday requiring Iran to be reported to the Security Council over a failure to convince the agency its nuclear program was entirely peaceful.

"The resolution was adopted," an IAEA spokeswoman told reporters.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) governing board approved it despite Iranian threats to begin enriching uranium if the U.S.-backed resolution, drafted by the EU's three biggest powers, that could eventually lead to U.N. Security Council sanctions against Tehran was passed.

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

In what EU diplomats said was a victory for Western efforts to ratchet up the pressure on Tehran, both China and Russia, which had strongly opposed the EU's proposed resolution, abstained. Venezuela was the only country to vote against it. READ MORE

Now the ball is back in Iran's court. Will it follow through with its threats to retaliate on those nations that voted for the resolution?

• Mehr News [Regime's News Agency] claimed the International consensus against Iran failed.

The vote provides us a clue as to how the UNSC will vote on the Issue. It is also encouraging that India voted for the resolution.

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• SMCCDI reported that the beginning of the Iranian New Academic Year, starting Saturday, was marked by spread protest actions.
• SMCCDI reported that several homes of the Marvook Village, located in the southern province of Lorestan, have burned following the mysterious rupture of a pipeline.
• Iranian blogger, Hossein Bastani, Rooz Online compared Khatami's and Ahmadijehad's trips abroad and the accidental events the went with them.
• Iranian blogger, Soheyl Asefi, Rooz Online provided more information on the Hojatieh group.
• NewIndPress reported that Iran's parliament speaker warned they may suspend the additional protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
• Iran Mania reported that Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal's statement implicating Iran in Iraq unrest was surprising and illogical.
• The Arab Network for Human Rights Info reported the Iranian government banned next weeks UN sponsored Regional Civil Society Forum on the Information Society for the Middle East and West Asia.
• Shaheen Fatemi, Iran va Jahan called upon the Iranian democratic opposition living in the free world to set aside their possible ideological differences and push the international community to support the Iranian people’s campaign for democracy and human rights as a means of solving the nuclear program issue.
• Khaleej Times Online reported that Federal investigators in Germany have unearthed new evidence linking Iran to the 1985 bombing of a US military base that injured 35 persons.
• And finally, Amir Taheri, Arab News thinks Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s new administration is walking into a trap partly of its own making.