Downing Street Says

» Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Iran

Asked for an update on Iran, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) told journalists that we were concerned by reports from the IAEA, and we were waiting for a full report from them later today. Everyone needed to be clear that this did seem to amount to another breach of IAEA board resolutions. Mr. El Baradei had summed up the situation well when he said that the international community was running out of patience, and we shared that view. The PMOS said that clearly, the next step was the Foreign Secretary would keep in close touch with our E3 colleagues, and we expected Ministers to discuss with the E3 the next steps soon. The first real port of call was with the IAEA board.

Asked if the Prime Minister thought that a) the time had come to refer to the United Nations (UN) and b) as was being reported that any attempt to refer would be "thwarted" by the Russians and the Chinese, the PMOS said that we had previously supported referral to the Security Council, but it depended on the outcome of any IAEA discussion. That process was therefore helped by us not giving too much of a running commentary in advance.

Asked if the Russians and Chinese could be "swung round", the PMOS said that he wanted to answer the questions without appearing to speak for, or address directly other countries. The PMOS said that what Mr. El Baradei’s comments reflected was a growing recognition that this was a real problem in the international community, with a real impatience with what was seen as Iran’s defiance of the international community. There was a procedure which was that first of all, the IAEA board needed to get a full report, and then the board needed to decide how to deal with that matter. That was the process, and we would go with that process, but no-one was trying to downplay the seriousness of this development.

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» Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Iran

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