Solving Iranian nuclear issue needs time

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Friday pass a resolution over the Iranian nuclear issue, urging Tehran to fully cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog.

However, according to the meaning between the lines of the resolution, the final settlement of the issue would take quite a long time.

One of the main reasons that the Iranian nuclear issue remains unsolved is that the United States has been pressuring the IAEA to force Tehran to give up it nuclear program through diplomatic means, said analysts.

Washington accused Iran of using the nuclear program as a smoke screen for developing nuclear weapons, and urged the IAEA to prove that Iran has violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, so as to pave the way for UN sanctions on the Gulf state.

But the accusation was repeatedly denied by Iran, which insists that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.

After one year of inspection, the IAEA find no clue to prove that Iran has been developing nuclear weapons.

IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei has said more than once that his team did not find that Iran's nuclear activities "have connection with military purposes."

Britain, France and Germany, under the pressure of the United States, submitted the draft resolution, which on the one hand criticized Iran for not fully cooperating with the IAEA, and on other hand tried to avoid making the IAEA take concrete measures and affecting ties between Iran and the European Union (EU).

The document was a result of compromise among the parties with revisions made following Iran's strong protest.

In the resolution, although the IAEA "deplores ... the fact that, overall ... Iran's cooperation has not been as full, timely and proactive as it should have been," it gave no deadline for solving the "remaining problems," nor did it threaten to report Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

Meanwhile, the resolution made it clear that "all the countries have the indeprivable right to develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes."

Thus, both Iran and the United States expressed comparatively positive attitude toward the resolution.

Despite unhappiness with the final resolution, "we still believe that we should continue cooperation with the IAEA to completely remove the remaining ambiguities," said Hossein Moussavian, spokesman for Iran's delegation to the IAEA meeting.

"The resolution ... on Iran is more positive than the previous ones," he added.

In Washington, US State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said the United States "would join in the resolution's call for Iran to take all the necessary steps on an urgent basis to resolve all of the outstanding questions that the IAEA has."

In addition, most part of the resolution was talking about the places that Iran needs to improve.

Thus, in order to clear up these problems, the IAEA considered it necessary to continue its inspection in Iran, saying "the integrity and credibility of the inspection are absolutely necessary in the next few months to settle all these issues."

Since last June, with more transparency from Iran over its nuclear issue, the inspection has gained some achievements and the issue has been on the track of peaceful solution.

However, analysts said a final resolution over the issue within the framework of the IAEA needs sincere dialogues and cooperation on the basis of mutual trust among the parties concerned.

As Iran and the United States remain widely divided over the issue, the international community could only wait with patience to see whether it eventually gets solved.