Disarmament Documentation

US Under Secretary of State, Nicholas Burns on ElBaradei and Iran, November 1, 2007

Under Secretary Nicholas Burns, Press Conference, November 1, 2007, at the Hotel Ambassador, Vienna, Austria.

Moderator: Good morning. Ambassador Burns, as you all know, has only a few minutes, so he's going to speak first and Ambassador Strohal will speak subsequent to him. That will give you more time with both Ambassador Burns and Ambassador Strohal. So without further ado…

Ambassador Burns: Thank you very much and thank you for coming out on what I know is All Saints Day, a religious holiday here in Austria. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm in Vienna for three purposes. The first is to meet with Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei later this morning, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and I'm looking forward to that meeting very much to discuss a variety of issues, most notably Iran and the preoccupation, of course, that all of us have to see that Iran does not proceed to produce nuclear capability. The United States has felt for a very long time that Iran should cease and desist its efforts to enrich uranium and its plan…. We have helped to sponsor three Security Council Resolutions between July of 2006 and March of 2007. We are now working on a third Security Council Consensus Resolution Chapter Seven. In fact, I'll be participating in a meeting in London tomorrow with the five countries and Germany to that effect. We spoke last week, the United States with Secretary of State Rice and Secretary Paulson, about new American sanctions on Iran, on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, on the [inaudible] on three Iranian banks, as well as some various state agencies and individuals. I look forward to talking to Dr. ElBaradei about the work of the IAEA which is important work, but also how it can be combined with the work of the United Nations Security Council so that all of us can work to see that Iran does not proceed with its nuclear ambitions...

Question: My question is, there's been some US criticism about Dr. ElBaradei for exceeding his mandate and speaking more strongly about Iran now having [inaudible]. Is there a specific message you will be giving him?

Burns: Well, yes, thank you very much for that question. I would say this, that obviously he is a person of great distinction, and the role he is playing is quite important, because his agency, of course, oversees some of the most difficult and complex issues in the world. Iran's nuclear program, I think Dr. ElBaradei. and the case of India has been very positive and very helpful and to the Indian government as well as all of us who wish to see the civil nuclear agreement between the United States and India go forward. On the question of Iran, however, while the role of the IAEA is very important, while it's important to look into questions concerning Iran's activity in the past, which is principally what Dr. ElBaradei. is doing is important, that's important, it is also important that the role of the Security Council be respected and in that vein, we believe, and the Security Council has spoken, and when the Security Council passes a resolution of the Chapter 7 it is obligatory that all member states of the United Nations follow that resolution. In July 1996 the Security Council spoke and said that Iran should suspend its enrichment activities at Natanz, enrichment and reprocessing activities. On Dec 23 of 2006 we passed the first Chapter 7 resolution and on March 24, 2007, passed the second Chapter 7 resolutions. So three resolutions, two of Chapter 7 variety, in over one year. It's important that everyone support the Security Council resolutions, and Dr. ElBaradei. has made statements in the past that would seem to indicate that sanctions might not work, or that enrichment is not going to be suspended, and obviously, as co-author of those Security Council resolutions, we take some issue with that and so we respect him, we will work with him we certainly support what he's doing with Iran in the IAEA context, but in order to achieve a resolution of this problem we are going to need the efforts of both the IAEA and the U.N. Security Council, and we think that the efforts of both have to be respected. And they have to in essence be tied together. And I don't think it's right to think one is more important than the other, they are both important. And that's certainly a point that we have made in the past to the IAEA and to Dr. ElBaradei we'll make it again. We wish him luck and we wish him success in his work with Iran because if he's successful, that means that Iran will finally begin to answer questions about P1 and P2 centrifuge research and the other activities that they did not report to the IAEA for a very long period of time.

Question: Can I just ask, do you think he's not getting the message? And that there might be an element of friction?

Burns: Oh, I didn't say that at all. I said rather than say that one organization is a totality of the efforts both organizations are important and we need to see both of them move forward, and I think the real problem here is not Dr. ElBaradei and not the United States, or any other country - it's Iran. Iran is the country that has not complied either with its IAEA obligations or with its Security Council obligations. Iran is a member state of the United Nations and therefore Iran has an obligation to suspend enrichment because that's what the Security Council has said. Twice under Chapter 7 and 3 times in total. So I look forward to a very good and in depth discussion with him. Our hope would be the following: our hope is that a third Security Council resolution will be passed as soon as possible, in New York, a sanctions resolution under Chapter 7. Second, we would very much support seeing the European Union go forward with further sanctions against Iran. Third, we think that the major trading partners of Iran should reduce their trade in order to send a message to Iran that it's not business as usual. And our view is that all of that should happen as soon as possible, so that Iran gets the message that as long it's defying the Security Council, which it currently is, and not cooperating fully with IAEA, which its my understanding that it currently is not cooperating, then it's very important that we send this message that there is going to be a price to what Iran does. And that price will be increased isolation and heightened sanctions. Our view is that we've offered negations to Iran. Secretary Rice, last Thursday, reaffirmed the wish of the Perm 5 countries of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China, along with Germany that all of us are willing to negotiate. Secretary Rice said that she would be at the negotiating table and any issue could be on the table. Iran has turned that offer down at least 3 times. In June 2006 after we made the offer here in Vienna. In June 2007, when it was reaffirmed to Iran by Javier Solana. And last Tuesday in Rome when Javier Solana met with this new joint negotiating team, Jalili Lararijani, they did not accept the offer to negotiate. And we were very clear here in Vienna on June 1, 2006, when the offer was first made, that if Iran could not accept the offer to negotiate, if Iran would not accept the offer to have us help provide electricity production through civil nuclear power in Iran, and the P5 said we'd help to provide that to Iran, then there would be sanctions. And so that's the choice that Iran has made. Iran has chosen the route of sanctions. We hope that Iran will reconsider, suspend its enrichment program and come to negotiations with the United States and with the other countries of the Perm 5. That offer is on the table, but Iran continues to refuse it. And I think that's the relevant, salient point that has to be made about this Iran issue these days.

Question: Secretary Burns, I just heard you say, I think I understood, ...that you, as far as you understand it Iran is still not cooperating fully with the IAEA. Are you suggesting, do I understand correctly, that you're getting information that Iran's implementation of the work plan is not followed through … by this point …

Burns: That interim judgment is going to be made by the IAEA and Dr. ElBaradei but it has not yet been made. There's been no report issued. In the meantime, let me give you one example. We know that Iran has told the IAEA for many years that it is not engaged and has not been engaged in P2 centrifuge research, but I also remember, we all remember, you remember, the statement of President Ahmadinejad, a public statement he made last year that Iran was engaged in P2 centrifuge research. So which is it? Is the President of Iran correct that they are violating their IAEA commitment by being engaged in P2 centrifuge research? Or is what the Iranians say at the IAEA in the private meetings correct? It's an interesting question. It's put a lot of doubts in people's minds. Plus the fact that they did not come clean with the IAEA for a great number of years on their secret research activities that were then revealed some years later. This has instilled a lot of doubts in people's minds. And so the IAEA has a part of the effort, but the United Nations Security Council, which of course is one of the supreme, multilateral, international bodies, has a very important responsibility here. And we've decided in that Council, by very large margins, some unanimous votes and some nearly unanimous, that Iran should be sanctioned. And the point of the sanctions is to convince the Iranians that the way forward here is a peaceful resolution of this dispute through diplomacy, but they've got to come to the negotiating table willing to answer questions honestly about their nuclear research which we don't believe that Iran has done for a great number of years.

Question: If Dr. ElBaradei gives Iran a clean bill of health in this interim report, would that be enough to forestall sanctions?

Burns: I think that the P5 ministers said in Sept. 28 in New York that they wanted to hear from Dr. ElBaradei, but also Dr. Javier Solana. And so if Iran is not suspended its enrichment program in Natanz by a couple weeks time, that's going to be a highly relevant factor for us. That means they will not have met their Security Council obligations, so both of these reports are going to be important and I don't know what Dr. ElBaradei is going to say. That's his business, and his right to issue his own report, but there's also another report issued by Dr. Solana. And since we're a member, a permanent member, of the Security Council, we're going to put great credence in whether or not Iran has met the conditions of a Security Council. What did we say in Security Council Resolution 1747 that we passed on March 24 of this year? We said that if within 60 days of March 24, if Iran had not fully suspended its enrichment and reprocessing activities, that the Security Council would sanction Iran again. Well, that didn't happen. On May 24, when those 60 days were up, we agreed to a brief period of time before the G8 summit when Dr. Solana would try to convince Iran to negotiate. Iran said no. And now we've seen Russia and China effectively blocking a third resolution since then. So, our judgment is that if Iran has not suspended in the next couple of weeks, well, our view will be, I'm sure, that that's not sufficient, that that will not be full cooperation with the Security Council. In fact, it will be a refutation, a refusal of Iran, to meet the requirements of the Security Council. And as a permanent member of the Security Council we think the will of the United Nations and the credibility of the United Nations needs to be upheld

So it's a great pleasure to be with you. I apologize: I have meetings to go to. And thank you very much for coming. And have a good day.

Nov. 1, 2007 Vienna

Source: US Mission in Vienna, http://vienna.usmission.gov.