Iran Diplomacy Shifts to U.N. Watchdog

WASHINGTON -- International nuclear diplomacy shifted to the United Nations Friday, as the International Atomic Energy Agency's top official flew to Iran to firm up agreements Tehran struck with global powers in Geneva this week to better monitor Iran's nuclear facilities.

Senior U.S. officials said the Obama administration fully embraced Mohammed ElBaradei's mission, illustrating the central role the White House now seeks for the IAEA and its outgoing Egyptian leader in its Iran diplomacy.

The current U.S. position marks a sharp reversal from the Bush administration's relationship with the IAEA, which was marked by public sparring over the Iraq war and allegations Syria was clandestinely pursuing nuclear work.

"With respect to the IAEA...this is the appropriate body to go to," said a senior U.S. official involved in White House strategy toward Iran. "And this had been done quite consciously here to have maximum unity and to have maximum credibility and to move it as quickly as possible."

ElBaradei is initially scheduled to meet Iranian officials Saturday to formalize an agreement to allow IAEA monitors to inspect Iran's previously secret uranium-enrichment facility in Qom, which the U.S. and its allies feared could be used to produce nuclear weapons. Iran says the its nuclear program is intended for purely peaceful purposes.

The IAEA has also been tasked to firm up by the middle of October an agreement reached in principle Thursday that would see Tehran transfer the bulk of its low-enriched uranium for further processing in Russia and France. U.S. officials hailed this tentative pact as potentially bringing Tehran's nuclear fuel under international monitoring, while denying it the ability in the near-term to quickly assemble an atomic weapon.

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