VIENNA: The UN nuclear watchdog IAEA starts its board meeting from Monday with the Iranian nuclear issue still deadlocked but amid slight progress on Syria's disputed program. In its last report on Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose 35-member board of governors will meet from Monday to Friday in Vienna, said it had “new information” of possible military dimensions to Tehran's program. “Iran is not engaging with the agency in substance on issues concerning the allegation that Iran is developing a nuclear payload for its missile program,” it said, calling again for more cooperation. For eight years now, the IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear program to try to establish whether it is entirely peaceful as Iran claims or masks a covert drive to build a bomb as Western powers believe. How the agency should respond to Tehran's constant obstructions is the biggest challenge, as this behavior, which Syria also seems to adopt, risks damaging the IAEA's credibility permanently, a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity. The UN Security Council has repeatedly asked Tehran to halt uranium-enrichment activities and a series of resolutions coupled with economic sanctions have had no effect so far. Iran maintains it has the right under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium for electricity and medical purposes. The concern is that, in highly refined form, enrichment can also produce the fissile core of an atom bomb. According to the IAEA's report, Tehran informed the agency that it planned to have its second uranium enrichment plant in Fordow up and running “by this summer.” The construction of the Fordow plant in the country's southwest infuriated the West after Tehran admitted the site's existence in September 2009 and Iran was censured by the UN atomic watchdog over the issue. While discussions over Iran's nuclear program seem to be heading nowhere, the Syrian issue however appears to be making slow progress. This week, diplomats said Damascus had agreed to a visit by IAEA inspectors for the first time since June 2008. This “could represent a step forward,” the watchdog noted. The inspectors were on April 1 due to visit the nuclear site at Homs in the west of the country, which is known to the IAEA and is not thought to be suspect, a source close to the agency said. The visit will not take in a possible uranium enrichment facility at Al Kibar, which was bombed by Israeli warplanes in 2007, the source added. Details of the visit had yet to be finalised, the source said. Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad narrowly avoided losing his second minister in as many months Sunday when parliament voted not to impeach him by just one vote. In parliament, which ousted Ahmadinejad's transport minister in February, 101 lawmakers voted to impeach Energy Minister Majid Namjou but 102 voted against, with 209 voting in total. Namjou's survival spares Ahmadinejad the defeat he suffered last month in an impeachment that he branded “illegal” and which illustrated on-going divisions between parliament and the executive. In a conciliatory move, Ahmadinejad, who snubbed the impeachment hearing for Transport Minister Hamid Behbahani, attended Sunday's session to appeal for Namjou's career. “What the lawmakers said (during the debate) indicated how much they care about the country's affairs ... But I hope Mr Namjou remains in the office,” he said. Speaking in favour of the impeachment, lawmaker Yussef Najafi said the minister had to go due to “his mismanagement and lack of tangible program”. In Iran the energy minister oversees the electricity and water networks but is not in charge of the vitally important oil and gas sectors which come under the Oil Ministry. Pre-empting any accusation that parliament was trying to undermine the government, Najafi added: “If the lawmakers use their legal supervisory means, it does not mean they oppose the cabinet members.” In February, Ahmadinejad said the impeachment of the transport minister, which followed a fatal air crash, was illegal and said: “I will speak to the Iranian public about the performance of the legislative body.” The hardline president has often angered members of parliament, which is also dominated by conservatives, who accuse him of being slow to submit national budgets for their scrutiny and failing to disburse funds for projects such as the expansion of Tehran's metro.
