- America is stepping up its efforts to remove Mohammed
El Baradei, the Egyptian head of the United Nations atomic energy agency,
as Washington prepares for a showdown over Iran's secret nuclear programme,
a senior Bush adminstration official has revealed.
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- "It cannot be good for an organisation when the
biggest contributor and its director general are at odds with each other,"
said the official, who is at the heart of policy-making in Washington.
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- Mr El Baradei has just completed his second four-year
term at the helm of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the usual limit
for any chief of a UN body. Washington views him as soft on Iran's ruling
clerics and suspects that he was behind the embarrassing leak about missing
explosives in Iraq in the final week of last year's United States presidential
election campaign.
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- "There are gracious ways to leave the stage,"
the official said. "El Baradei has not chosen the gracious way, but
that has not changed our view that we need a new IAEA head." US officials
are trying to gain support for a no-confidence vote, possibly at the next
IAEA meeting on February 28.
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- As President George W Bush prepares for a four-day European
trip to mend diplomatic fences after the rows over the Iraq war, the official
said he believed that Washington and its European detractors were ready
to "turn the page" on those disputes. The official said, however,
that despite an apparent change of tone, there is no significant shift
in American foreign policy at the start of the President's second term.
In a sign of the deep transatlantic divide over how to handle Teheran's
nuclear ambitions, he effectively accused Britain and its European allies
of double standards for opposing US efforts to refer the issue to the UN
Security Council.
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- "We get all this criticism for being unilateralist
American cowboys, but it is the US that wants to take this to the Security
Council," the official said. "Who's been opposing that? Britain,
France and Germany - two permanent members of the Security Council and
one that wants to be. So who's in favour of using the UN system and who's
against it?"
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- The so-called EU3 (the British, French and Germans) reached
an agreement with Teheran in December under which the Iranians, who say
their nuclear programme is civil, not military, agreed to suspend uranium
enrichment in return for trade accords and technical assistance.
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- The US believes that the deal will fail because of Iran's
track record of duplicity about its nuclear activities, and wants to refer
Teheran directly to the Security Council.
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- The official warned the European nations that their opposition
to referring Iran to the Security Council "will not be forgotten in
Washington" and said: "Next time we hear their views on the importance
of the UN, we'll be reviewing previous comments by Europe on Iran."
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- The next IAEA board meeting at which members will discuss
the work of its nuclear inspectors in Iran begins on February 28. American
diplomats at its headquarters in Vienna have begun seeking backing for
a no-confidence vote on Mr El Baradei, who began a third term in office
last month after the US failed to find a challenger to oppose him.
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- Teheran last week again signalled its unwillingness to
provide permanent guarantees that it has ceased all uranium enrichment
operations as the mullahs celebrated the 26th anniversary of the overthrow
of the Shah with mass street protests.
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- At the same time North Korea claimed for the first time
that it has nuclear weapons, and said it was withdrawing from the six-nation
talks with America, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. It said it would
talk only to the US. The American official said Washington would not agree
to this, although the Bush administration does believe North Korea's claim.
On China, the official repeated US opposition to a resumption of weapons
sales by the European Union, which imposed an arms embargo after the 1989
Tiananmen Square massacre. The EU is preparing to lift the embargo and
substitute a code of conduct governing military sales, but the US fears
that advanced weaponry sold to Beijing could be deployed against its own
forces in the event of military confrontation over Taiwan.
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- The President will make clear his outright opposition
to the French-led initiative in meetings in Belgium and Germany next week.
In Washington, the House of Representatives condemned the EU plan by 411
votes to three, a sign of the strength of feeling in America.
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- The administration official warned Europe that Congress
might legislate to prohibit US firms from trading with European companies
that conduct military trade with China. "Those European firms would
have to decide: it's us or China. If the EU goes ahead with this, it will
call into question the whole basis of transatlantic defence arrangements."
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.html
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