Russia Rescues Tehran from UNSC Penalties

DEBKAfile:

The accord was announced Sunday, Feb. 26, by Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, after he spent two days talking in Tehran with his Russian counterpart Sergei Kiriyenko.

The Russians, by going along with Iran’s demands, have waived the safeguards demanded by the US, the Europeans and Israel, against weapons-grade enrichment, and rescued the Islamic Republic from the UN nuclear watchdog's complaint to the UN Security Council. Referral of Iran’s nuclear breaches of the NPT was to have taken place after the critical IAEA board session in Vienna March 6.

Kiriyenko went to Tehran to vindicate his drive for a lone Kremlin hand on the nuclear issue, after previous talks backed by the US and European Union on the Moscow offer had stalled.

Our military sources report that by proving his point, Kirienko has also made it possible for Iran to enrich uranium up to weapons grade. Israel is thus confronted with a potential strategic threat as grave - or graver - than the Hamas rise to power in Palestinian government.

In the space of a month, the two developments have tightened the Iranian noose around the Jewish state.

DEBKAfile reported earlier that the Russian go-it-alone initiative had aroused deep concern in Washington, Jerusalem and Vienna – and why.

Kirienko leads a Kremlin faction that advocates breaking ranks with Washington and Europe and striking out for a bilateral Moscow-Tehran deal that takes the brakes off the Islamic republic’s nuclear program, under certain conditions. President Vladimir Putin prefers to go along with the West. He was overruled by the faction led by Kirienko, who set out for Tehran last Friday. READ MORE

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources add: Washington and Jerusalem feared that the Kirienka delegation, to succeed, would draft an accord that permitted hands-on Iranian involvement in the joint uranium enrichment venture on Russian soil. Letting Iran have a say in the manufacturing process and the decisions on quantities and grade of the product nullifies the checks on the Russian-Iranian enterprise turning out weapons-grade uranium..

According to information reaching Washington and Jerusalem, Kirienko also favors letting Iran continue enrichment at home simultaneously with the Russian-hosted enterprise.

American and Israeli suspicions were first aroused, according to our intelligence sources, by the odd behavior of Gholam Reza Aghazadeh’s delegation upon its arrival in Moscow Monday, Feb. 20, to discuss the joint plant in Russia. Its maneuvers had the appearance of a decoy operation to mystify and draw attention away from the real action elsewhere. A bulletin at the end of the day reported no progress, followed by a continuation Tuesday, which the Iranians abruptly left without explanation. Then, too, an Iranian official demanded that resumed diplomacy with the European Union take place separately with each government instead of with a joint UK-French-German delegation.

This was taken in Washington with foreboding as a step to divorce the Tehran-Moscow track from Iran’s talks with Europe and its dealings with the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna.

The success of Kirienko’s mission to Tehran blunts the international drive to prevent Iran attaining a nuclear device.

1. Moscow’s original hosting plan approved by Washington and the EU denied Tehran permission to enrich uranium outside the joint plant in Russia, or seat its representative in production management. The Kirienko plan departs drastically from that text.

2. He has helped Iran avoid UN Security Council penalties by a so-called compromise formula. In the new circumstances, Moscow may well have committed to veto any effective US-European bloc resolution to halt Iran’s advance towards a nuclear weapon.