Iran wins time

last updated 8 January 2015

Vienna

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency this week found Iran in violation of nuclear treaties but failed to take any action. An unusually divided IAEA board passed a resolution finding an “absence of confidence that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.” Normally, such a case would go to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, but the board set no date for Iran’s referral. Even so, Iran was furious, and threatened to resume uranium enrichment and ban U.N. inspectors from its plants. Iran has already started uranium conversion, the step before enrichment. “Iran’s brave scientists have mastered the fuel cycle with their will power,” said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “The Iranian government will not give up the legal and definite rights of its people.”