India Blinked

The debate behind closed doors was unprecedentedly rancorous. There were bitter exchanges between UK Governor Peter Jenkins and his counterparts from Malaysia and South Africa. When Jenkins dismissed their criticism as ‘disingenuous’, Malaysian Governor Rajmah Hussein retorted, ‘I object to this treatment’.

NAM Governors were particularly piqued by the dismissal of the views of Abdul Minty, the representative of South Africa, a country which occupies a moral high ground on the nuclear issue: in 1993 it voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons and program.

To leave no one in doubt that abstaining by the 12 NAM members was tantamount to the rejection of the resolution, their leader, Malaysian Governor Rajmah Hussein, immediately attacked the IAEA’s majority decision. ‘Our major concerns and those of like-minded states were not taken on board,’she complained.

Minty said that the Europeans and Americans had ridden roughshod over others and that this was ‘dangerous’.

There were two defections from the NAM ranks: Singapore and India. The behavior of Singapore, one of the richest countries, did not surprise many. Contrary was the case with India.

‘The vote in favor of the resolution by India came as a shock to the Islamic Republic,’ noted the Iran News ‘Until yesterday, Iranian diplomats were expressing confidence that New Delhi would be in Tehran's corner.’

As a leading pioneer of the non-aligned movement, India was expected to stand by the NAM, which has a membership of 116 at the United Nations. But apparently New Delhi abandoned its principled ideology for a technological gain.

During the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington in July, President George W. Bush described India as ‘a responsible nuclear weapons power’, and promised to make advanced US civilian nuclear technology available to it. But this could only be done if the Congress voted to make an exception to the existing United States law. Finding India on Tehran’s side at the IAEA, the Bush White House threatened not to make the necessary recommendation to the Congress.

Much to the NAM’s regret, the ploy worked.

By contrast, Venezuela, ruled by the charismatic leftist leader Hugo Chavez, became the sole IAEA board member to vote against the UK-sponsored resolution.

It was not the first time Chavez had displayed the courage of his convictions. In August 2000, defying the Bill Clinton administration, he went to Baghdad in his capacity as chairman of the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC). His mission was to invite personally heads of OPEC member-states to the 40th anniversary summit of the organization in Caracas. His visit to Baghdad, the first by a head of state in a decade, set the scene for the air flight busting, with a Russian plane arriving in the Iraqi capital a week later, and a steady erosion of UN sanctions.

The Iranian Response

Before the vote, an Iranian representative had shown the IAEA Secretary-General Muhammad El Baradei unsigned letters authorizing the start of uranium enrichment in Iran and deciding to stop the application of the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which allows IAEA inspectors to make unannounced checks of nuclear facilities. If signed and delivered, the letters would become official documents, Baradei was told.

After the IAEA resolution on 24 September, the legislative and executive branches of the Iranian government responded differently.

Calling the resolution ‘unfair’, 180 Iranian legislators signed a statement urging the government to ‘nullifythe voluntary suspension of Iran's peaceful nuclear work phase by phase,’ and resume uranium enrichment activities. The statement added that the Additional Protocol should not be ratified as demanded by the IAEA resolution. Since the signatories form a majority in the 290-strong Parliament, they can block the ratification of the Protocol.

It is highly unlikely though that Iran would resume work on enriching uranium. In any case, it has to give the IAEA 180 days advance notice before doing so.

Equally unlikely is the prospect of the Islamic Republic withdrawing from the nuclear NPT if it falls foul of the UN Security Council. ‘Iran will respect the NPT and will continue to cooperate with the IAEA,’ said Iran’s Foreign Minister ManouchehrMottaki.

What about the IAEA resolution’s call on Iran to resume talks with Britain, France and Germany – the European Union Troika, EU3 – which collapsed after nearly two years when Tehran resumed conversion of uranium oxide into uranium hexafluoride in August?

Mottaki expressed Iran’s readiness to continue negotiations ‘within the framework of the NPT’ until the next IAEA meeting in November – with a qualification: ‘Iran will include new countries in the talks.’

So far, the EU3, backed by the United States, has ruled out expanding the negotiating team.

But this is the one area where a compromise by the EU3 can repair the rupture caused in the international community by the West’s unyielding stance. By agreeing to include, say, South Africa and Malaysia, the Europeans will make the expanded negotiating team reflect accurately the present composition of the IAEA Board of Governors. Such a team will also be geographically more representative of the globe. Failure to do so will solidify the damaging divide between the West and the developing world.

Dilip Hiro is the author of Secrets and Lies: The True Story of the Iraq War (Politico’s Publishing, London, distributed in India by Research Press, New Delhi) and most recently The Iranian Labyrinth: Journeys through Theocratic Iran and its Furies (Nation Books, New York)