World powers draft resolution on Iran

Five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany have prepared a draft resolution on Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Diplomats said on Tuesday that the draft document, backed by the US, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China (P5+1), calls on the Iranian government to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to provide details of Iran’s Fordo enrichment facility.

Meanwhile, the draft text also urges the Islamic Republic to suspend its uranium enrichment as requested by the previous United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The draft will be presented at the meeting of the board of governors at the IAEA headquarters in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Thursday.

The resolution is unlikely to pass with many IAEA governors who disagree with the P5+1.

The Fordo uranium enrichment plant, which lies 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Tehran, is currently under construction. The plant has been visited twice by the IAEA inspectors within the last two months.

Iran announced the existence of the Fordo nuclear plant — the country’s second nuclear plant, after the Natanz facility in central Iran — 12 months sooner than the IAEA requirements.

The IAEA in its latest report released on Monday once again confirmed “the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.”

Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), says its activities are aimed at the civilian applications of the technology.

Tehran, however, faces pressure to halt its nuclear enrichment as world powers claim the program is aimed at building an atomic bomb.

The Islamic Republic says nuclear weapons have no place in its defensive doctrine and has called for the removal of all weapons of mass destruction from across the globe.