Great Zot! After first “Reaffirming its commitment to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the need for all States Party to that Treaty to comply fully with all their obligations, and recalling the right of States Party, in conformity with Articles I and II of that Treaty, to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination”, on March 3, 2008, the UN Security Council – allegedly “Acting under Article 41 of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations” – perversely proceeded to “reaffirm” its “decision” of 23 December 2006 that Iran “shall, without further delay, suspend”
“a) all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the IAEA; and
“(b) work on all heavy water-related projects, including the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water, also to be verified by the IAEA”
The blatant irrationality boggles the mind. And it’s barely conceivable that the reason the mainstream media didn’t report on the irrationality of that resolution to you was that their minds got boggled, long ago, early in the reign of King George.
UNSC Resolution 1803 also imposed on Iran new sanctions and the MSM did manage to report that.
However, most of the sanctions were unrelated to Iran’s nuclear programs – all of which have long been “verifiably” subject to a Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, as required by the NPT. The MSM didn’t report that to you, either.
Which brings us to the official reaction – a Note Verbale, dated March 26, 2008 – sent by the Iranians to the IAEA Secretariat, to be forwarded to the Secretary General of the United Nations and all Member States.
It is an absolutely brilliant expose of King George’s efforts to not only corrupt the IAEA Board of Governors and UN Security Council, but to undermine the IAEA Statute, the NPT and UN Charter, itself.
In particular, Iran correctly notes that
“Involvement of the Security Council in the Iranian peaceful nuclear program is in full contravention with the organizational, Statutory and safeguards requirements governing the IAEA practices and procedures. Furthermore, the substantive and procedural legal requirements, that are necessary for engaging the Security Council in the issues raised by the Agency, have been totally ignored in this regard.”
In particular –
“The Security Council has never determined Iran’s Nuclear Program as a threat to international peace and security under Article 39 of the UN Charter and, thus, it could not adopt any measures against the Islamic Republic of Iran under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.”
Furthermore –
“The Security Council, as a UN organ created by Member States, is subject to legal requirements, and is obliged to comply with the same international normative rules that the Member States are bound to. The Council shall observe all international norms, in particular the UN Charter and the peremptory norms of international law, in the process of its decision making and in its taking actions. Needless to say that any measure adopted in contradiction to such rules and principles will be void of any legally binding effects.”
IAEA Director-General ElBaradei declared in his oral report to the IAEA Board of Governors on March 3, 2008 that the “reason” the Iranian IAEA dossier had originally been forwarded to the Security Council “was ambiguities related to its enrichment program in the past” and that “this issue is no longer considered outstanding.” Therefore, the Iranians argue, “no pretext or justification remains either for the engagement of the Security Council in this regard or any request for suspension.”
Prior to their dossier being forwarded to the Security Council, Iran had voluntarily implemented for more than two and a half years an Additional Protocol to their Safeguards Agreement. ElBaradei has just reported that the additional information continues to voluntarily provide is “similar” to that which would be required by a ratified Additional Protocol.
However, Iran is only legally bound to accept and implement the basic Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement. Requiring Iran to implement an Additional Protocol – which recent Security Council Resolutions have done – to which Iran has not formally expressed its consent “contradicts the established principles of international law of treaties.”
Now, according to the IAEA Statute, the Director-General and his designated inspectors “shall have access at all times to all places” in an IAEA member state as necessary “to account for [Safeguarded] source and special fissionable materials” and “to determine whether there is compliance with the undertaking against use in furtherance of any military purpose.”
When IAEA inspectors do determine that safeguarded materials have been used “in furtherance of any military purpose,” they “shall” report such “non-compliance” to the Director-General who “shall” thereupon transmit the report to the Board of Governors.
As the Iranian Note Verbale argues, IAEA inspectors have never made such report to ElBaradei about Iran.
In fact, ElBaradei has repeatedly reported to the Board that “all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities.”
Furthermore, on August 21, 2007, ElBaradei had come to an “understanding” with Iran on a “Work Plan” for resolving outstanding “issues” – some of them actually none of IAEA’s beeswax, and many of them originally raised in the summer of 2005, by King George’s munchkins, based upon “studies” allegedly contained on an stolen laptop computer, said to belong to an Iranian engineer (by then supposedly deceased) tangentially related to the implementation of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement.
According to the Iranians, ElBaradei has just reported to the IAEA Board that the Work Plan has been “fully implemented and nothing more remains to be done in this regard.”
Moreover, Iran has charged that, “by providing false and erroneous information to the IAEA,” the United States and three European countries [E3] “have prevented the Agency from fulfilling its real tasks on important issues such as the prevention of actual proliferation, disarmament, and contemplating a mechanism to effectively verify the nuclear activities of the non-parties to the NPT, particularly the Zionist regime that is continuing to develop nuclear weapons in the region.”
Iran claims to have initiated in 1974 – the year Iran concluded its IAEA Safeguards Agreement as required by the NPT – the idea of establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East and the UN General Assembly has adopted a supporting resolution every year since then.
Why hasn’t one been established? Well, it seems King George and his predecessors – for some unfathomable reason – keeps vetoing it.
