UNITED NATIONS - UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei made a plea for Iran and the European Union to keep their nuclear talks alive and for Iran to refrain from uranium enrichment activities, as a non-proliferation conference opened at the United Nations Monday.
The Iranian crisis has developed into a serious threat to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which since 1970 has mandated the world fight against the spread of nuclear weapons.
Both ElBaradei and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned in speeches opening the month-long NPT conference that the treaty is out of date in the face of new threats and technology and needs to be fixed.
In comments about the EU's efforts to win guarantees that the Islamic Republic will not make nuclear weapons, ElBaradei told reporters: "I hope that both parties will continue to talk."
"I would hope that the Iranians will not take any unilateral decisions to initiate any activities that now are currently suspended. I think that any future move has to be agreed between both parties," ElBaradei said.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said that any resumption of enrichment activities would lead to an end of Iran's nuclear talks with EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany.
"This would lead to a collapse of the talks," Fischer said. "It is the foundation of the talks that uranium enrichment remains suspended."
Iran is unhappy with the progress of the negotiations and may resume uranium conversion activities in defiance of the agreed suspension of nuclear fuel cycle work, top negotiator Hassan Rowhani said in Tehran over the weekend.
"It is unlikely that we will resume enrichment, that is to say the activities at Natanz. But some activities at the UCF (Uranium Conversion Facility) at Isfahan could resume next week," Rowhani was quoted as saying.
Uranium conversion involves turning uranium ore into UF6 gas. That gas can be fed into cascade sequences of centrifuges that refine out enriched uranium to be used as fuel for atomic power reactors or what can be the explosive core of a nuclear weapon.
Uranium conversion is covered by a freeze Iran agreed to in November 2004 to kick-start negotiations with the European trio aimed at easing international fears that Tehran is seeking the bomb.
ElBaradei said the EU-Iran talks were in a "delicate phase -- no question about it," adding that he had been talking with both sides.
Nuclear crises in Iran and North Korea, the discovery of an international smuggling ring supplying their programs and the threat of atomic terrorism are among recent developments leading to doubts about whether the NPT is working.
"The plain fact is that the (non-proliferation) regime has not kept pace with the march of technology and globalization, and developments of many kinds in recent years have placed it under great stress," Annan said.
Annan said the international community must act to strengthen the NPT before "the gap between promise and performance becomes unbridgeable."
ElBaradei said that without change, the treaty "will fade into irrelevance and leave us vulnerable and unprotected."
North Korea kicked out inspectors from ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in December 2002, withdrew from the NPT the following month, and now claims to have made atom bombs.
Annan said the 188 nations meeting at UN headquarters "must strengthen confidence in the integrity of the treaty, particularly in the face of the first withdrawal announced by a state."
He also said the Vienna-based IAEA should be given more authority to inspect the nuclear programs of states that are party to the NPT by making an additional protocol for wider inspections apply to all.
Annan also referred indirectly to Iran, saying the non-proliferation regime "will not be sustainable if scores more states develop the most sensitive phases of the fuel cycle and are equipped with the technology to produce nuclear weapons on short notice."
"To prevent that, you must find durable ways to reconcile the right to peaceful uses with the imperative of non-proliferation," the UN chief said.
Annan said nuclear weapons states must keep their part of the bargain in the NPT and move forward on disarming.
"An important step would be for former Cold War rivals to commit themselves, irreversibly, to further cuts in their arsenals so that warheads number in the hundreds and not the thousands," he said.
05/02/2005 17:49 GMT