Outgoing IAEA chief has tough choice on Iran

VIENNA – For close to a year, diplomats say, a report on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons experiments has been sitting in a drawer of a U.N. nuclear monitoring agency, with access limited to only a few top officials.

The question is whether the document — a summary of all the International Atomic Energy Agency knows about Iran's nuclear program — will be made public when agency publishes its latest report on Iran within two weeks.

As that date approaches IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is faced with the tough choice of publishing all his agency findings about Iran's alleged arms programs, or leaving the decision to his successor later this year.

The existence of a secret IAEA summary of what the agency knows based on its investigations and U.S. and other intelligence was confirmed to The Associated Press over the past few days by three senior western diplomats from nations accredited to the IAEA, as well as a senior international official who follows the Iran nuclear issue.

What's more, the information concerning allegations that Iran actively pursued research into developing nuclear warheads and the way to deliver them has been available since September, the diplomats say.

Since then, the U.S. and its allies have pushed the agency to circulate the summary among the IAEA's 35 board member nations of what it knew and its conclusions about the allegations, said the diplomats, who demanded anonymity for discussing confidential issues.

But although even some of his senior aides favor publication, ElBaradei has balked, they said. The agency chief has been keen to avoid moves that could harden already massive Iranian intransigence on cooperating with his agency on probing the allegations and on other issues — and of pushing the U.S. or Israel closer to a possible military strike on Tehran's nuclear facilities.

IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire said Thursday the agency would not comment.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning IAEA chief may possibly already be focusing on his legacy as his 12-year tenure winds down.

A restricted draft resolution shared with the AP and prepared by his agency for a 35-nation board meeting starting Sept. 7 pays "tribute" to Elbaradei and lauds the "significant contribution" he has made to the work of the agency and "the cause of international peace and security during his distinguished and successful tenure as Director General."

The draft calls for him to be named "Director General Emeritus" — an honor also accorded to his immediate predecessors.

His last day is Nov. 30. And as that date draws closer ElBaradei has repeated calls for talks on and with Iran instead of tough talk — gaining praise from the developing world but enforcing the view among his Western critics that he often oversteps his agency's mandate as purely technical organization with no political message.

He also has sharp words for his critics: "As to how we write our reports, that's our business," he told a June session of the board.

Washington unsuccessfully lobbied in 2005 to block ElBaradei's reappointment because his statements on Iraq and Iran were peppered with barely disguised criticisms of U.S. policy. The West has also viewed some statements on Israel and Gaza as overtly political, even while they were praised by Arab nations and their backers.

Elbaradei's reports on Iran have become more critical after months of continued Iranian stonewalling of IAEA efforts to monitor and investigate Iran's nuclear programs.

Still, Western delegations say they do not go far enough in faulting Tehran for withholding information and continuing to expand uranium enrichment, which can create both nuclear fuel and the fissile material for warheads.

Iran dismisses the weapons programs allegations as groundless and ElBaradei himself has said there is no "concrete evidence" that Iran was engaged in such work — even while suggesting two months ago that Tehran wants to have the capability to build such arms.

But a senior diplomat who regularly talks with leading agency experts told the AP last year that the experts viewed much of the intelligence forwarded by the U.S and other nations on alleged secret Iranian nuclear arms work as "compelling."

The June IAEA report said nearly 5,000 centrifuges were now enriching at Natanz — about 1,000 more than at the time of the last agency report, issued in February — with more than 2,000 others ready to start enriching. 

Most experts estimate that the more than 1,000 kilograms — 2,200 pounds — of low-enriched uranium Iran had accumulated by February was enough to produce enough weapons-grade material through further enrichment for one nuclear weapon. 

And as Iran expands its operations at Natanz, its potential capacity to produce highly enriched uranium is also growing. 

Iran's stonewalling of the agency on increased monitoring has raised agency concerns that its experts might not be able to make sure that some of the enriched material produced at Natanz is not diverted for potential weapons use. 

"We will be looking to see how strongly Elbaradei expresses these concerns" in the next report, said one of the diplomats from a Western delegation.

Baha'is trial due to start next week in Iran

(CNN) -- Iran reportedly plans next week to put on trial seven Baha'i prisoners accused of espionage, even though one of their lawyers has become a fellow detainee and the other is outside the country. 

The death penalty trial was delayed from last month and now human rights activists are concerned that closed-door proceedings without the lawyers will result in a judicial farce. 

Diane Ala'i, the Baha'i International Community's representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, said the trial date became known after Iranian authorities sent a notice to Abdolfattah Soltani, a human rights lawyer who was arrested in the aftermath of Iran's disputed June 12 presidential election. 

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said Soltani was detained along with other human rights activists in the post-election turmoil and is behind bars at Evin, the same prison where the Baha'is are incarcerated. Ebadi was on a speaking tour when Soltani was arrested and has not returned to Iran. 

 
The Baha'is are accused of spying for Israel, spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic and committing religious offenses -- allegations that Ala'i said are "completely false." "The trial is all about them being Baha'i," she said. 

The Baha'i faith originated in 19th-century Persia, but modern-day Iran does not recognize it, though it denies any mistreatment of members of the largest non-Muslim religious minority. 

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, however, has reported an intensified persecution of Baha'is in recent years, including cemetery desecration, arbitrary detention, home raids, property confiscation, work expulsion and denial of basic civil rights. 

The case of the seven Baha'is has drawn global attention. Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist freed from Evin prison earlier this year, spoke on their behalf, as have Human Rights Watch and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). 

"We continue to call on the White House and State Department to condemn the imprisonment of the seven innocent Baha'is and demand their immediate and unconditional release," said Leonard Leo, chairman of USCIRF, which is an independent bipartisan federal commission. 

"The Iranian government should live up to its international human rights commitments and permit the more than 300,000 Baha'is in Iran to practice their faith peacefully, rescind any existing laws that permit members of the Baha'i faith to be killed with impunity, and allow full access for Baha'is to study in public universities without discrimination," he said. 

Ala'i said the investigation into the charges against the prisoners concluded months ago, but Iran has continued to hold them in Evin prison without access to their lawyers and with minimal contact with their families. 

They were under solitary confinement the first five months after their incarceration. Six were arrested in May 2008 at their Tehran homes; one was arrested in the eastern city of Mashad in March 2008. 

The upcoming trial, without the presence of the two key lawyers, amounts to another tactic to deprive the prisoners of their legal rights, Ala'i said. She called it a "travesty of justice." 

She also said the August 18 trial date could change, noting that the families of the seven had been told in June that they were to be tried on July 11, only to have that date come and go. 
"Given the past history of this case, the utter lack of concern for procedure on the part of authorities, and the current situation in Iran, it is simply not possible to know when the proceedings will actually begin," she said.

Iran confirms US trio being held

Iran has confirmed that it is holding three Americans thought to have strayed into its territory, a top official in the US says.

National Security Advisor Jim Jones told NBC television that the official confirmation came on Sunday morning. 

The US had sent "strong messages" to Tehran urging their release, he said. 

The trio are thought to have crossed the border on 1 August while hiking in Iraq's Kurdish region. There has been confusion over their whereabouts since. 

The deputy governor of Iran's Kurdistan province said on 4 August that they were being questioned, but the foreign ministry in Tehran said a day later that it could neither confirm nor deny that they were being held. 

"The government has officially acknowledged they have them in their custody," Mr Jones told NBC's "Meet the Press". "That is of this morning that we have that confirmation." 

"We have sent strong messages that we would like these three young people released as soon as possible," he said. 

The Americans have been named by relatives as Shane Bauer, a Middle East-based freelance journalist from Minnesota, his girlfriend, Sarah Shourd, and Joshua Fattal from Pennsylvania, whose father is Iraqi. 

The frontier in the area where the trio are thought to have entered Iran is said to be poorly marked.