Mohamed ElBaradei
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17/09/07, Elaine Sciolino - William J. Broad, An Indispensable Irritant to Iran and Its Foes, Source.
Nobel Lecture, Oslo, December 10, 2005, Source.
17/09/07, Elaine Sciolino - William J. Broad, An Indispensable Irritant to Iran and Its Foes, (Back).
VIENNA — Late in August, Mohamed ElBaradei put the finishing touches on a nuclear accord negotiated in secret with Iran.
The deal would be divisive and risky, one of the biggest gambles of his 10 years as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran would answer questions about its clandestine nuclear past in exchange for a series of concessions. With no advance notice or media strategy, Dr. ElBaradei ordered the plan released in the evening. And then he waited.
The next day, diplomats from the United States, France, Britain and Germany marched into his office atop a Vienna skyscraper to deliver a joint protest. The deal, they said, amounted to irresponsible meddling that threatened to undermine a United Nations Security Council strategy to punish, not reward, Tehran.
Dr. ElBaradei, an Egyptian-born lawyer, was polite but firm. “If Iran wants to answer questions, what am I supposed to do, tell them it can’t?” he asked.
Then, brandishing one of his characteristic mangled metaphors, he dismissed his critics as “living room coaches who shoot from the hip.”
Almost five years after he stood up to the Bush administration on Iraq and then won the Nobel Peace Prize for his trouble, Dr. ElBaradei now finds himself at the center of the West’s turbulent confrontation with Iran, derided yet relied upon by all sides.
To his critics in the West, he is guilty of serious diplomatic sins — bias toward Iran, recklessness and, above all, a naïve grandiosity that leads him to reach far beyond his station. Over the past year, even before he unveiled his deal with Tehran, Western governments had presented him with a flurry of formal protests over his stewardship of the Iran case.
Even some of his own staff members have become restive, questioning his leadership and what they see as his sympathy for the Iranians, according to diplomats here.
Yet the Iranians also seek to humiliate him and block his inspectors.
“He is the man in the middle,” said Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman long respected for his foreign affairs acumen. “The United States and Iran simply do not believe one another. There is deep distrust.” And, he added, that makes the situation “very difficult” for any go-between.
Even so, while Dr. ElBaradei’s harshest detractors describe him as drunk with the power of his Nobel, what keeps him on center stage is a pragmatic truth: He is everyone’s best hope.
He has grown ever more indispensable as American credibility on atomic intelligence has nose-dived and European diplomacy with Tehran has stalled.
For the world powers, he is far and away the best source of knowledge about Iran’s nuclear progress — information Washington uses regularly to portray Tehran as an imminent global danger.
Even the Iranians need him (as he likes to remind them) because his maneuvers promise to lessen and perhaps end the sting of United Nations sanctions.
Dr. ElBaradei, who is 65, seems unfazed, even energized, by all the dissent. He alludes to a sense of destiny that has pressed him into the role of world peacemaker. He has called those who advocate war against Iran “crazies,” and in two long recent interviews described himself as a “secular pope” whose mission is to “make sure, frankly, that we do not end up killing each other.”
He added, “You meet someone in the street — and I do a lot — and someone will tell me, ‘You are doing God’s work,’ and that will keep me going for quite a while.”
It is precisely that self-invented role that enrages his detractors. They say he has stepped dangerously beyond the mandate of the I.A.E.A., a United Nations agency best known for inspecting atomic installations in an effort to find and deter secret work on nuclear arms.
“Instead of being the head of a technical agency, whose job is to monitor these agreements, and come up with objective assessments, he has become a world policy maker, an advocate,” said Robert J. Einhorn, the State Department’s nonproliferation director from 1999 to 2001.
In particular, Dr. ElBaradei is faulted for his new deal with Iran, which has defied repeated Security Council demands to suspend its enrichment of uranium. Critics say the plan threatens to buy Iran more time to master that technology, which can make fuel for reactors or atomic bombs.
Despite Iran’s long history of nuclear deception, Dr. ElBaradei’s supporters cite his vindication on Iraq — no evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear program has been found — as reason to listen to him now.
“He could have saved us a disastrous war if we had paid attention to him,” said Thomas M. Franck, an international law professor emeritus at New York University Law School, who taught Dr. ElBaradei there decades ago and has remained a close friend.
After the Iran accord became public, The Washington Post published an editorial branding Dr. ElBaradei a “Rogue Regulator.” His wife, Aida, who is his closest political adviser, came up with a response — T-shirts that succinctly frame the ElBaradei debate: “Rogue regulator” will be stenciled on the front, “Or smooth operator?” on the back.
Ambitious, but Reserved
When Dr. ElBaradei received the Nobel Prize in December 2005, he used his acceptance speech to lay out an ambitious agenda — helping the poor, saving the environment, fighting crime and confronting new dangers spawned by globalization.
“We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls, developing bigger weapons, or dispatching more troops,” he said. “Quite to the contrary, by their very nature, these security threats require primarily international cooperation.”
Yet Dr. ElBaradei’s expansive view of himself is a striking counterpoint to his personal style.
That Nobel night, he was celebrating with friends in his suite at the Grand Hotel in Oslo when thousands of people appeared on the street below, holding candles and cheering. Unsure of himself, he froze.
“He was clearly nonplused and adrift at what to do,” Mr. Franck recalled. “His wife told him to wave back.”
A tall, shy man with a salt-and-pepper mustache, Dr. ElBaradei is so averse to small talk that he refuses even superficial conversation with staff members in the agency’s elevators, aides say.
Rather than venture into the dining room or cafeteria, he brings lunch from home and eats at his desk. He must be arm-twisted to make even the briefest appearance at important agency functions.
“He is very reserved, very aloof,” Mrs. ElBaradei said recently over tea in their apartment, filled with rugs from Iran and the awards and other baubles that come with her husband’s persona as a campaigner for world peace. “He thinks these diplomatic receptions and dinners are a waste of time.”
He shares confidences with only a handful of associates. “He doesn’t have meetings where he seeks input,” said one former agency official, who like some others would speak about Dr. ElBaradei only on the condition of anonymity. “It’s, ‘Here’s what I want to do.’ ”
He has become a compulsive name-dropper, diplomats say. “He remains a shy man, but one who is somehow dazzled by his own destiny,” said one European nonproliferation official who knows him well. “He’s always saying, ‘Oh, I talked to Condi last week and she told me this,’ or ‘I was with Putin and he said this or that.’ He’s almost like a child.”
The eldest of five children from an upper-middle-class family in Cairo, Dr. ElBaradei grew up with a French nanny and a private school education. At 19, he became the national youth champion in squash. “You have to be cunning,” he said of the sport.
His father, a lawyer, was the head of Egypt’s bar association. The son studied law and joined the foreign service, eventually serving in New York. Living there in the late 1960s and early ’70s was so transforming, he said, that today he feels greater kinship with New York than Cairo, more comfortable speaking English than Arabic.
While working on his doctorate on international law at New York University, he went to New York Knicks basketball games and to the Metropolitan Opera, and stayed up late talking American politics and drinking wine in Greenwich Village bars. His first girlfriend, he said, was Jewish.
Moving up the diplomatic ladder, he eventually settled in Vienna, where he became the nuclear agency’s legal counselor and then head of external relations. His ascent to the top job, in 1997, was a surprise.
After none of the proposed candidates received the needed votes, the American ambassador to the agency at the time, John Ritch, led a quiet campaign for Dr. ElBaradei, a close friend. In a cable to Washington, Mr. Ritch recalled, he said the United States could do no better than backing “an Egyptian who is a passionate Knicks fan.”
Dr. ElBaradei started out with the modest goal of reorganizing the agency, which today has about 2,300 employees. Then came Iraq. Before the war, the Bush administration repeatedly warned of Saddam Hussein getting the bomb, and called on atomic inspectors to confirm that view.
Instead, in March 2003, Dr. ElBaradei told the Security Council that after hundreds of inspections over three months, his teams had found “no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program.” And while President Bush charged that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa, Dr. ElBaradei dismissed the underlying intelligence as “not authentic.”
The invasion, 13 days later, was “the saddest day of my life,” he said.
Even as American troops found no unconventional arms, the Bush administration waged a quiet campaign against Dr. ElBaradei and his agency, barring his inspectors from Iraq and working behind the scenes to keep him from a third term.
He said he had been “99 percent decided” against running until he learned that John R. Bolton, then Washington’s United Nations ambassador, was determined to block him.
Dr. ElBaradei recalled “a sense of revulsion” that such a personal decision should be made “by anybody else.”
His wife said she had told him, “Mohamed, you run — tomorrow!”
Ultimately, with no candidate of its own and no international support, the United States backed down.
In October 2005, a month into his new term, the Nobel call came.
Breaking the Seals
The standoff with Tehran entered its current phase on Jan. 10, 2006, when Iran broke the I.A.E.A.’s protective seals on equipment at its underground site at Natanz and resumed efforts to enrich uranium.
When the West began imposing sanctions, Iran retaliated by cutting back on its cooperation with Dr. ElBaradei’s agency and barring dozens of its inspectors. As the Iranians ramped up enrichment, the agency and the rest of the world were steadily going blind to aspects of Iran’s nuclear program.
Dr. ElBaradei himself was humiliated on a rare visit to Tehran in April 2006. Two days before his arrival, the Iranians announced a breakthrough — industrial-level enrichment.
Still, Dr. ElBaradei hoped to meet the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Instead, he spent much of his time cooling his heels in a hotel room.
Critics say Dr. ElBaradei has responded to such provocations by going soft on Tehran — glossing over its violations, caving to its demands and writing reports that bend over backward to be conciliatory.
For instance, they say he has added to inspection woes by moving a half-dozen top investigators off the case, which the agency defends as normal rotations. The agency’s chief Iran inspector, Christian Charlier, who spoke out publicly about Iran’s evasiveness, was assigned to the agency’s Brazil file.
“He’s naïve and idiosyncratic and that amounts to being dangerous,” Mr. Bolton said. “His argument for years was that he could talk Iran out of being a nuclear threat. Then it was, ‘O.K., we’ll just let them experiment.’ Now it’s, ‘You’re never going to get them to give up.’ ”
But Dr. ElBaradei’s supporters say he is engaged in a balancing act that deals as much with Washington’s excesses as with Tehran’s.
In May, after Vice President Dick Cheney warned from an aircraft carrier off Iran’s coast that the United States was ready to use its naval power to keep Iran from “gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region,” Dr. ElBaradei offered a quick response: he declared that Iran had achieved “the knowledge” of enrichment — implying that it was too late for military action or other Western punishment for refusing to stop its atomic efforts.
“The fact of the matter,” he said, “is that one of the purposes of suspension — keeping them from getting the knowledge — has been overtaken by events.”
His remarks outstripped the analyses of his own inspectors, who were reporting technical problems at Natanz, and contributed to suspicions that he was exaggerating Iran’s progress as a political maneuver. Even so, that argument — that Iran has already crossed an important line — is the tacit assumption behind the new accord.
The plan, released Aug. 27, sets a firm timetable for Iran to clear up a half-dozen controversies about past secret activities, while also improving access for I.A.E.A. inspectors.
The diplomats who marched into Dr. ElBaradei’s office the next day shredded the plan point by point.
They expressed dismay that the accord, negotiated with no diplomatic input, omitted any stipulation that Iran suspend enrichment. One envoy noted that the plan forces inspectors to ask questions on only one issue at a time, leaving the most delicate topics until the end.
There was general alarm that the document suggested treating Iran like a “routine” case, instead of a country that had lied repeatedly, and, according to some governments, harbors a secret nuclear-arms program.
Dr. ElBaradei’s response, paraphrased by a Western official, was that “all you are doing is being suspicious; the agency cannot judge Iranian intentions.”
In the days that followed, representatives of other countries hammered Dr. ElBaradei with sharp criticism. But a week later, many governments had begun to believe that their strategy was backfiring. They decided to try to co-opt Dr. ElBaradei rather than isolate him.
The new thinking went like this: he and the Iranians had won this round. Much of the world would consider the agreement on a timetable a step forward. By contrast, Western diplomacy was hopelessly stalled.
On Sept. 7, envoys from the four Western powers again visited Dr. ElBaradei’s office. This time, though, they offered support for his effort to clear up the past, and said they welcomed his renewed support in pressing Iran to suspend enrichment and let inspectors conduct wider inquiries.
“We told the Americans it would do no good to criticize ElBaradei, that it would only make him look even more like a hero,” said one senior European official.
In the interview, Dr. ElBaradei called the shift “a complete change” — a result of his explaining and “standing firm.” He called his accord a sound step toward defusing the Iran confrontation.
“I have no qualm that some people have distrust because of Iran’s past behavior,” he said.
But sanctions alone, he added, would solve nothing. “You need to sit together and talk about it and try to work out mechanisms to build confidence.”
And if the Iranians do not keep their promises, he said: “I told them very openly that it will backfire. Absolutely.”
Weighing the Risks
Early in September, when the agency’s board gathered here in Vienna and discussed the new plan, the American envoy, Gregory L. Schulte, stunned colleagues by praising Dr. ElBaradei. He told the board that the deal was “a potentially important development and a step in the right direction.”
Even so, diplomats and visitors say that in unguarded moments, Dr. ElBaradei has expressed the conviction that a lasting accommodation with Iran must wait until the Bush administration is gone.
The danger, some analysts say, is that by then, Iran might have acquired the ability to make a bomb. American intelligence analysts put that date at anywhere from 2010 to 2015.
Even if Iran begins to deliver on its latest promises, Dr. ElBaradei faces a potential deal breaker. As part of the accord, he is demanding that the United States give Tehran copies of American intelligence documents related to suspected secret Iranian military work on nuclear warheads. As a lawyer, he said, he was determined to give Iran the access it deserved.
And if it turns out that Iran did, in the past, make secret moves toward nuclear arms? “Many countries had ambitions in the past,” Dr. ElBaradei said, raising the prospect that, in theory, Iran, too, might “have to make certain confessions.”
He added that the most important thing “is for them to come clean.”
Elaine Sciolino reported from Vienna, and William J. Broad from New York.
Nobel Lecture, Oslo, December 10, 2005, (Back).
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Honourable Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.
The International Atomic Energy Agency and I are humbled, proud, delighted and above all strengthened in our resolve by this most worthy of honours.
My sister-in-law works for a group that supports orphanages in Cairo. She and her colleagues take care of children left behind by circumstances beyond their control. They feed these children, clothe them and teach them to read.
At the International Atomic Energy Agency, my colleagues and I work to keep nuclear materials out of the reach of extremist groups. We inspect nuclear facilities all over the world, to be sure that peaceful nuclear activities are not being used as a cloak for weapons programmes.
My sister-in-law and I are working towards the same goal, through different paths: the security of the human family.
But why has this security so far eluded us?
I believe it is because our security strategies have not yet caught up with the risks we are facing. The globalization that has swept away the barriers to the movement of goods, ideas and people has also swept with it barriers that confined and localized security threats.
A recent United Nations High-Level Panel identified five categories of threats that we face:
1. Poverty, Infectious Disease, and Environmental Degradation;
2. Armed Conflict – both within and among states;
3. Organized Crime;
4. Terrorism; and
5. Weapons of Mass Destruction.
These are all 'threats without borders' – where traditional notions of national security have become obsolete. We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls, developing bigger weapons, or dispatching more troops. Quite to the contrary. By their very nature, these security threats require primarily multinational cooperation.
But what is more important is that these are not separate or distinct threats. When we scratch the surface, we find them closely connected and interrelated.
We are 1,000 people here today in this august hall. Imagine for a moment that we represent the world's population. These 200 people on my left would be the wealthy of the world, who consume 80 per cent of the available resources. And these 400 people on my right would be living on an income of less than $2 per day.
This underprivileged group of people on my right is no less intelligent or less worthy than their fellow human beings on the other side of the aisle. They were simply born into this fate.
In the real world, this imbalance in living conditions inevitably leads to inequality of opportunity, and in many cases loss of hope. And what is worse, all too often the plight of the poor is compounded by and results in human rights abuses, a lack of good governance, and a deep sense of injustice. This combination naturally creates a most fertile breeding ground for civil wars, organized crime, and extremism in its different forms.
In regions where conflicts have been left to fester for decades, countries continue to look for ways to offset their insecurities or project their 'power'. In some cases, they may be tempted to seek their own weapons of mass destruction, like others who have preceded them.
* * * * * * *
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Fifteen years ago, when the Cold War ended, many of us hoped for a new world order to emerge. A world order rooted in human solidarity – a world order that would be equitable, inclusive and effective.
But today we are nowhere near that goal. We may have torn down the walls between East and West, but we have yet to build the bridges between North and South – the rich and the poor.
Consider our development aid record. Last year, the nations of the world spent over $1 trillion on armaments. But we contributed less than 10 per cent of that amount – a mere $80 billion – as official development assistance to the developing parts of the world, where 850 million people suffer from hunger.
My friend James Morris heads the World Food Programme, whose task it is to feed the hungry. He recently told me, "If I could have just 1 per cent of the money spent on global armaments, no one in this world would go to bed hungry."
It should not be a surprise then that poverty continues to breed conflict. Of the 13 million deaths due to armed conflict in the last ten years, 9 million occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, where the poorest of the poor live.
Consider also our approach to the sanctity and value of human life. In the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, we all grieved deeply, and expressed outrage at this heinous crime – and rightly so. But many people today are unaware that, as the result of civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 3.8 million people have lost their lives since 1998.
Are we to conclude that our priorities are skewed, and our approaches uneven?
* * * * * * *
Ladies and Gentlemen. With this 'big picture' in mind, we can better understand the changing landscape in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
There are three main features to this changing landscape: the emergence of an extensive black market in nuclear material and equipment; the proliferation of nuclear weapons and sensitive nuclear technology; and the stagnation in nuclear disarmament.
Today, with globalization bringing us ever closer together, if we choose to ignore the insecurities of some, they will soon become the insecurities of all.
Equally, with the spread of advanced science and technology, as long as some of us choose to rely on nuclear weapons, we continue to risk that these same weapons will become increasingly attractive to others.
I have no doubt that, if we hope to escape self-destruction, then nuclear weapons should have no place in our collective conscience, and no role in our security.
To that end, we must ensure – absolutely – that no more countries acquire these deadly weapons.
We must see to it that nuclear-weapon states take concrete steps towards nuclear disarmament.
And we must put in place a security system that does not rely on nuclear deterrence.
* * * * * * *
Are these goals realistic and within reach? I do believe they are. But then three steps are urgently required.
First, keep nuclear and radiological material out of the hands of extremist groups. In 2001, the IAEA together with the international community launched a worldwide campaign to enhance the security of such material. Protecting nuclear facilities. Securing powerful radioactive sources. Training law enforcement officials. Monitoring border crossings. In four years, we have completed perhaps 50 per cent of the work. But this is not fast enough, because we are in a race against time.
Second, tighten control over the operations for producing the nuclear material that could be used in weapons. Under the current system, any country has the right to master these operations for civilian uses. But in doing so, it also masters the most difficult steps in making a nuclear bomb.
To overcome this, I am hoping that we can make these operations multinational – so that no one country can have exclusive control over any such operation. My plan is to begin by setting up a reserve fuel bank, under IAEA control, so that every country will be assured that it will get the fuel needed for its bona fide peaceful nuclear activities. This assurance of supply will remove the incentive – and the justification – for each country to develop its own fuel cycle. We should then be able to agree on a moratorium on new national facilities, and to begin work on multinational arrangements for enrichment, fuel production, waste disposal and reprocessing.
We must also strengthen the verification system. IAEA inspections are the heart and soul of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. To be effective, it is essential that we are provided with the necessary authority, information, advanced technology, and resources. And our inspections must be backed by the UN Security Council, to be called on in cases of non-compliance.
Third, accelerate disarmament efforts. We still have eight or nine countries who possess nuclear weapons. We still have 27,000 warheads in existence. I believe this is 27,000 too many.
A good start would be if the nuclear-weapon states reduced the strategic role given to these weapons. More than 15 years after the end of the Cold War, it is incomprehensible to many that the major nuclear-weapon states operate with their arsenals on hair-trigger alert – such that, in the case of a possible launch of a nuclear attack, their leaders could have only 30 minutes to decide whether to retaliate, risking the devastation of entire nations in a matter of minutes.
These are three concrete steps that, I believe, can readily be taken. Protect the material and strengthen verification. Control the fuel cycle. Accelerate disarmament efforts.
But that is not enough. The hard part is: how do we create an environment in which nuclear weapons – like slavery or genocide – are regarded as a taboo and a historical anomaly?
* * * * * * *
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Whether one believes in evolution, intelligent design, or Divine Creation, one thing is certain. Since the beginning of history, human beings have been at war with each other, under the pretext of religion, ideology, ethnicity and other reasons. And no civilization has ever willingly given up its most powerful weapons. We seem to agree today that we can share modern technology, but we still refuse to acknowledge that our values – at their very core – are shared values.
I am an Egyptian Muslim, educated in Cairo and New York, and now living in Vienna. My wife and I have spent half our lives in the North, half in the South. And we have experienced first hand the unique nature of the human family and the common values we all share.
Shakespeare speaks of every single member of that family in The Merchant of Venice, when he asks: "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
And lest we forget:
There is no religion that was founded on intolerance – and no religion that does not value the sanctity of human life.
Judaism asks that we value the beauty and joy of human existence.
Christianity says we should treat our neighbours as we would be treated.
Islam declares that killing one person unjustly is the same as killing all of humanity.
Hinduism recognizes the entire universe as one family.
Buddhism calls on us to cherish the oneness of all creation.
Some would say that it is too idealistic to believe in a society based on tolerance and the sanctity of human life, where borders, nationalities and ideologies are of marginal importance. To those I say, this is not idealism, but rather realism, because history has taught us that war rarely resolves our differences. Force does not heal old wounds; it opens new ones.
* * * * * * *
Ladies and Gentlemen.
I have talked about our efforts to combat the misuse of nuclear energy. Let me now tell you how this very same energy is used for the benefit of humankind.
At the IAEA, we work daily on every continent to put nuclear and radiation techniques in the service of humankind. In Vietnam, farmers plant rice with greater nutritional value that was developed with IAEA assistance. Throughout Latin America, nuclear technology is being used to map underground aquifers, so that water supplies can be managed sustainably. In Ghana, a new radiotherapy machine is offering cancer treatment to thousands of patients. In the South Pacific, Japanese scientists are using nuclear techniques to study climate change. In India, eight new nuclear plants are under construction, to provide clean electricity for a growing nation – a case in point of the rising expectation for a surge in the use of nuclear energy worldwide.
These projects, and a thousand others, exemplify the IAEA ideal: Atoms for Peace.
But the expanding use of nuclear energy and technology also makes it crucial that nuclear safety and security are maintained at the highest level.
Since the Chernobyl accident, we have worked all over the globe to raise nuclear safety performance. And since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, we have worked with even greater intensity on nuclear security. On both fronts, we have built an international network of legal norms and performance standards. But our most tangible impact has been on the ground. Hundreds of missions, in every part of the world, with international experts making sure nuclear activities are safe and secure.
I am very proud of the 2,300 hard working men and women that make up the IAEA staff – the colleagues with whom I share this honour. Some of them are here with me today. We come from over 90 countries. We bring many different perspectives to our work. Our diversity is our strength.
We are limited in our authority. We have a very modest budget. And we have no armies.
But armed with the strength of our convictions, we will continue to speak truth to power. And we will continue to carry out our mandate with independence and objectivity.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a powerful message for us – to endure in our efforts to work for security and development. A durable peace is not a single achievement, but an environment, a process and a commitment.
* * * * * * *
Ladies and Gentlemen.
The picture I have painted today may have seemed somewhat grim. Let me conclude by telling you why I have hope.
I have hope because the positive aspects of globalization are enabling nations and peoples to become politically, economically and socially interdependent, making war an increasingly unacceptable option.
Among the 25 members of the European Union, the degree of economic and socio-political dependencies has made the prospect of the use of force to resolve differences almost absurd. The same is emerging with regard to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, with some 55 member countries from Europe, Central Asia and North America. Could these models be expanded to a world model, through the same creative multilateral engagement and active international cooperation, where the strong are just and the weak secure?
I have hope because civil society is becoming better informed and more engaged. They are pressing their governments for change – to create democratic societies based on diversity, tolerance and equality. They are proposing creative solutions. They are raising awareness, donating funds, working to transform civic spirit from the local to the global. Working to bring the human family closer together.
We now have the opportunity, more than at any time before, to give an affirmative answer to one of the oldest questions of all time: "Am I my brother's keeper?"
What is required is a new mindset and a change of heart, to be able to see the person across the ocean as our neighbour.
Finally, I have hope because of what I see in my children, and some of their generation.
I took my first trip abroad at the age of 19. My children were even more fortunate than I. They had their first exposure to foreign culture as infants, and they were raised in a multicultural environment. And I can say absolutely that my son and daughter are oblivious to colour and race and nationality. They see no difference between their friends Noriko, Mafupo, Justin, Saulo and Hussam; to them, they are only fellow human beings and good friends.
Globalization, through travel, media and communication, can also help us – as it has with my children and many of their peers – to see each other simply as human beings.
* * * * * * *
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Imagine what would happen if the nations of the world spent as much on development as on building the machines of war. Imagine a world where every human being would live in freedom and dignity. Imagine a world in which we would shed the same tears when a child dies in Darfur or Vancouver. Imagine a world where we would settle our differences through diplomacy and dialogue and not through bombs or bullets. Imagine if the only nuclear weapons remaining were the relics in our museums. Imagine the legacy we could leave to our children.
Imagine that such a world is within our grasp.
(Back).
Nobel Lecture, Oslo, December 10, 2005, Source.
17/09/07, Elaine Sciolino - William J. Broad, An Indispensable Irritant to Iran and Its Foes, (Back).
VIENNA — Late in August, Mohamed ElBaradei put the finishing touches on a nuclear accord negotiated in secret with Iran.
The deal would be divisive and risky, one of the biggest gambles of his 10 years as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran would answer questions about its clandestine nuclear past in exchange for a series of concessions. With no advance notice or media strategy, Dr. ElBaradei ordered the plan released in the evening. And then he waited.
The next day, diplomats from the United States, France, Britain and Germany marched into his office atop a Vienna skyscraper to deliver a joint protest. The deal, they said, amounted to irresponsible meddling that threatened to undermine a United Nations Security Council strategy to punish, not reward, Tehran.
Dr. ElBaradei, an Egyptian-born lawyer, was polite but firm. “If Iran wants to answer questions, what am I supposed to do, tell them it can’t?” he asked.
Then, brandishing one of his characteristic mangled metaphors, he dismissed his critics as “living room coaches who shoot from the hip.”
Almost five years after he stood up to the Bush administration on Iraq and then won the Nobel Peace Prize for his trouble, Dr. ElBaradei now finds himself at the center of the West’s turbulent confrontation with Iran, derided yet relied upon by all sides.
To his critics in the West, he is guilty of serious diplomatic sins — bias toward Iran, recklessness and, above all, a naïve grandiosity that leads him to reach far beyond his station. Over the past year, even before he unveiled his deal with Tehran, Western governments had presented him with a flurry of formal protests over his stewardship of the Iran case.
Even some of his own staff members have become restive, questioning his leadership and what they see as his sympathy for the Iranians, according to diplomats here.
Yet the Iranians also seek to humiliate him and block his inspectors.
“He is the man in the middle,” said Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman long respected for his foreign affairs acumen. “The United States and Iran simply do not believe one another. There is deep distrust.” And, he added, that makes the situation “very difficult” for any go-between.
Even so, while Dr. ElBaradei’s harshest detractors describe him as drunk with the power of his Nobel, what keeps him on center stage is a pragmatic truth: He is everyone’s best hope.
He has grown ever more indispensable as American credibility on atomic intelligence has nose-dived and European diplomacy with Tehran has stalled.
For the world powers, he is far and away the best source of knowledge about Iran’s nuclear progress — information Washington uses regularly to portray Tehran as an imminent global danger.
Even the Iranians need him (as he likes to remind them) because his maneuvers promise to lessen and perhaps end the sting of United Nations sanctions.
Dr. ElBaradei, who is 65, seems unfazed, even energized, by all the dissent. He alludes to a sense of destiny that has pressed him into the role of world peacemaker. He has called those who advocate war against Iran “crazies,” and in two long recent interviews described himself as a “secular pope” whose mission is to “make sure, frankly, that we do not end up killing each other.”
He added, “You meet someone in the street — and I do a lot — and someone will tell me, ‘You are doing God’s work,’ and that will keep me going for quite a while.”
It is precisely that self-invented role that enrages his detractors. They say he has stepped dangerously beyond the mandate of the I.A.E.A., a United Nations agency best known for inspecting atomic installations in an effort to find and deter secret work on nuclear arms.
“Instead of being the head of a technical agency, whose job is to monitor these agreements, and come up with objective assessments, he has become a world policy maker, an advocate,” said Robert J. Einhorn, the State Department’s nonproliferation director from 1999 to 2001.
In particular, Dr. ElBaradei is faulted for his new deal with Iran, which has defied repeated Security Council demands to suspend its enrichment of uranium. Critics say the plan threatens to buy Iran more time to master that technology, which can make fuel for reactors or atomic bombs.
Despite Iran’s long history of nuclear deception, Dr. ElBaradei’s supporters cite his vindication on Iraq — no evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear program has been found — as reason to listen to him now.
“He could have saved us a disastrous war if we had paid attention to him,” said Thomas M. Franck, an international law professor emeritus at New York University Law School, who taught Dr. ElBaradei there decades ago and has remained a close friend.
After the Iran accord became public, The Washington Post published an editorial branding Dr. ElBaradei a “Rogue Regulator.” His wife, Aida, who is his closest political adviser, came up with a response — T-shirts that succinctly frame the ElBaradei debate: “Rogue regulator” will be stenciled on the front, “Or smooth operator?” on the back.
Ambitious, but Reserved
When Dr. ElBaradei received the Nobel Prize in December 2005, he used his acceptance speech to lay out an ambitious agenda — helping the poor, saving the environment, fighting crime and confronting new dangers spawned by globalization.
“We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls, developing bigger weapons, or dispatching more troops,” he said. “Quite to the contrary, by their very nature, these security threats require primarily international cooperation.”
Yet Dr. ElBaradei’s expansive view of himself is a striking counterpoint to his personal style.
That Nobel night, he was celebrating with friends in his suite at the Grand Hotel in Oslo when thousands of people appeared on the street below, holding candles and cheering. Unsure of himself, he froze.
“He was clearly nonplused and adrift at what to do,” Mr. Franck recalled. “His wife told him to wave back.”
A tall, shy man with a salt-and-pepper mustache, Dr. ElBaradei is so averse to small talk that he refuses even superficial conversation with staff members in the agency’s elevators, aides say.
Rather than venture into the dining room or cafeteria, he brings lunch from home and eats at his desk. He must be arm-twisted to make even the briefest appearance at important agency functions.
“He is very reserved, very aloof,” Mrs. ElBaradei said recently over tea in their apartment, filled with rugs from Iran and the awards and other baubles that come with her husband’s persona as a campaigner for world peace. “He thinks these diplomatic receptions and dinners are a waste of time.”
He shares confidences with only a handful of associates. “He doesn’t have meetings where he seeks input,” said one former agency official, who like some others would speak about Dr. ElBaradei only on the condition of anonymity. “It’s, ‘Here’s what I want to do.’ ”
He has become a compulsive name-dropper, diplomats say. “He remains a shy man, but one who is somehow dazzled by his own destiny,” said one European nonproliferation official who knows him well. “He’s always saying, ‘Oh, I talked to Condi last week and she told me this,’ or ‘I was with Putin and he said this or that.’ He’s almost like a child.”
The eldest of five children from an upper-middle-class family in Cairo, Dr. ElBaradei grew up with a French nanny and a private school education. At 19, he became the national youth champion in squash. “You have to be cunning,” he said of the sport.
His father, a lawyer, was the head of Egypt’s bar association. The son studied law and joined the foreign service, eventually serving in New York. Living there in the late 1960s and early ’70s was so transforming, he said, that today he feels greater kinship with New York than Cairo, more comfortable speaking English than Arabic.
While working on his doctorate on international law at New York University, he went to New York Knicks basketball games and to the Metropolitan Opera, and stayed up late talking American politics and drinking wine in Greenwich Village bars. His first girlfriend, he said, was Jewish.
Moving up the diplomatic ladder, he eventually settled in Vienna, where he became the nuclear agency’s legal counselor and then head of external relations. His ascent to the top job, in 1997, was a surprise.
After none of the proposed candidates received the needed votes, the American ambassador to the agency at the time, John Ritch, led a quiet campaign for Dr. ElBaradei, a close friend. In a cable to Washington, Mr. Ritch recalled, he said the United States could do no better than backing “an Egyptian who is a passionate Knicks fan.”
Dr. ElBaradei started out with the modest goal of reorganizing the agency, which today has about 2,300 employees. Then came Iraq. Before the war, the Bush administration repeatedly warned of Saddam Hussein getting the bomb, and called on atomic inspectors to confirm that view.
Instead, in March 2003, Dr. ElBaradei told the Security Council that after hundreds of inspections over three months, his teams had found “no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program.” And while President Bush charged that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa, Dr. ElBaradei dismissed the underlying intelligence as “not authentic.”
The invasion, 13 days later, was “the saddest day of my life,” he said.
Even as American troops found no unconventional arms, the Bush administration waged a quiet campaign against Dr. ElBaradei and his agency, barring his inspectors from Iraq and working behind the scenes to keep him from a third term.
He said he had been “99 percent decided” against running until he learned that John R. Bolton, then Washington’s United Nations ambassador, was determined to block him.
Dr. ElBaradei recalled “a sense of revulsion” that such a personal decision should be made “by anybody else.”
His wife said she had told him, “Mohamed, you run — tomorrow!”
Ultimately, with no candidate of its own and no international support, the United States backed down.
In October 2005, a month into his new term, the Nobel call came.
Breaking the Seals
The standoff with Tehran entered its current phase on Jan. 10, 2006, when Iran broke the I.A.E.A.’s protective seals on equipment at its underground site at Natanz and resumed efforts to enrich uranium.
When the West began imposing sanctions, Iran retaliated by cutting back on its cooperation with Dr. ElBaradei’s agency and barring dozens of its inspectors. As the Iranians ramped up enrichment, the agency and the rest of the world were steadily going blind to aspects of Iran’s nuclear program.
Dr. ElBaradei himself was humiliated on a rare visit to Tehran in April 2006. Two days before his arrival, the Iranians announced a breakthrough — industrial-level enrichment.
Still, Dr. ElBaradei hoped to meet the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Instead, he spent much of his time cooling his heels in a hotel room.
Critics say Dr. ElBaradei has responded to such provocations by going soft on Tehran — glossing over its violations, caving to its demands and writing reports that bend over backward to be conciliatory.
For instance, they say he has added to inspection woes by moving a half-dozen top investigators off the case, which the agency defends as normal rotations. The agency’s chief Iran inspector, Christian Charlier, who spoke out publicly about Iran’s evasiveness, was assigned to the agency’s Brazil file.
“He’s naïve and idiosyncratic and that amounts to being dangerous,” Mr. Bolton said. “His argument for years was that he could talk Iran out of being a nuclear threat. Then it was, ‘O.K., we’ll just let them experiment.’ Now it’s, ‘You’re never going to get them to give up.’ ”
But Dr. ElBaradei’s supporters say he is engaged in a balancing act that deals as much with Washington’s excesses as with Tehran’s.
In May, after Vice President Dick Cheney warned from an aircraft carrier off Iran’s coast that the United States was ready to use its naval power to keep Iran from “gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region,” Dr. ElBaradei offered a quick response: he declared that Iran had achieved “the knowledge” of enrichment — implying that it was too late for military action or other Western punishment for refusing to stop its atomic efforts.
“The fact of the matter,” he said, “is that one of the purposes of suspension — keeping them from getting the knowledge — has been overtaken by events.”
His remarks outstripped the analyses of his own inspectors, who were reporting technical problems at Natanz, and contributed to suspicions that he was exaggerating Iran’s progress as a political maneuver. Even so, that argument — that Iran has already crossed an important line — is the tacit assumption behind the new accord.
The plan, released Aug. 27, sets a firm timetable for Iran to clear up a half-dozen controversies about past secret activities, while also improving access for I.A.E.A. inspectors.
The diplomats who marched into Dr. ElBaradei’s office the next day shredded the plan point by point.
They expressed dismay that the accord, negotiated with no diplomatic input, omitted any stipulation that Iran suspend enrichment. One envoy noted that the plan forces inspectors to ask questions on only one issue at a time, leaving the most delicate topics until the end.
There was general alarm that the document suggested treating Iran like a “routine” case, instead of a country that had lied repeatedly, and, according to some governments, harbors a secret nuclear-arms program.
Dr. ElBaradei’s response, paraphrased by a Western official, was that “all you are doing is being suspicious; the agency cannot judge Iranian intentions.”
In the days that followed, representatives of other countries hammered Dr. ElBaradei with sharp criticism. But a week later, many governments had begun to believe that their strategy was backfiring. They decided to try to co-opt Dr. ElBaradei rather than isolate him.
The new thinking went like this: he and the Iranians had won this round. Much of the world would consider the agreement on a timetable a step forward. By contrast, Western diplomacy was hopelessly stalled.
On Sept. 7, envoys from the four Western powers again visited Dr. ElBaradei’s office. This time, though, they offered support for his effort to clear up the past, and said they welcomed his renewed support in pressing Iran to suspend enrichment and let inspectors conduct wider inquiries.
“We told the Americans it would do no good to criticize ElBaradei, that it would only make him look even more like a hero,” said one senior European official.
In the interview, Dr. ElBaradei called the shift “a complete change” — a result of his explaining and “standing firm.” He called his accord a sound step toward defusing the Iran confrontation.
“I have no qualm that some people have distrust because of Iran’s past behavior,” he said.
But sanctions alone, he added, would solve nothing. “You need to sit together and talk about it and try to work out mechanisms to build confidence.”
And if the Iranians do not keep their promises, he said: “I told them very openly that it will backfire. Absolutely.”
Weighing the Risks
Early in September, when the agency’s board gathered here in Vienna and discussed the new plan, the American envoy, Gregory L. Schulte, stunned colleagues by praising Dr. ElBaradei. He told the board that the deal was “a potentially important development and a step in the right direction.”
Even so, diplomats and visitors say that in unguarded moments, Dr. ElBaradei has expressed the conviction that a lasting accommodation with Iran must wait until the Bush administration is gone.
The danger, some analysts say, is that by then, Iran might have acquired the ability to make a bomb. American intelligence analysts put that date at anywhere from 2010 to 2015.
Even if Iran begins to deliver on its latest promises, Dr. ElBaradei faces a potential deal breaker. As part of the accord, he is demanding that the United States give Tehran copies of American intelligence documents related to suspected secret Iranian military work on nuclear warheads. As a lawyer, he said, he was determined to give Iran the access it deserved.
And if it turns out that Iran did, in the past, make secret moves toward nuclear arms? “Many countries had ambitions in the past,” Dr. ElBaradei said, raising the prospect that, in theory, Iran, too, might “have to make certain confessions.”
He added that the most important thing “is for them to come clean.”
Elaine Sciolino reported from Vienna, and William J. Broad from New York.
Nobel Lecture, Oslo, December 10, 2005, (Back).
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Honourable Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.
The International Atomic Energy Agency and I are humbled, proud, delighted and above all strengthened in our resolve by this most worthy of honours.
My sister-in-law works for a group that supports orphanages in Cairo. She and her colleagues take care of children left behind by circumstances beyond their control. They feed these children, clothe them and teach them to read.
At the International Atomic Energy Agency, my colleagues and I work to keep nuclear materials out of the reach of extremist groups. We inspect nuclear facilities all over the world, to be sure that peaceful nuclear activities are not being used as a cloak for weapons programmes.
My sister-in-law and I are working towards the same goal, through different paths: the security of the human family.
But why has this security so far eluded us?
I believe it is because our security strategies have not yet caught up with the risks we are facing. The globalization that has swept away the barriers to the movement of goods, ideas and people has also swept with it barriers that confined and localized security threats.
A recent United Nations High-Level Panel identified five categories of threats that we face:
1. Poverty, Infectious Disease, and Environmental Degradation;
2. Armed Conflict – both within and among states;
3. Organized Crime;
4. Terrorism; and
5. Weapons of Mass Destruction.
These are all 'threats without borders' – where traditional notions of national security have become obsolete. We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls, developing bigger weapons, or dispatching more troops. Quite to the contrary. By their very nature, these security threats require primarily multinational cooperation.
But what is more important is that these are not separate or distinct threats. When we scratch the surface, we find them closely connected and interrelated.
We are 1,000 people here today in this august hall. Imagine for a moment that we represent the world's population. These 200 people on my left would be the wealthy of the world, who consume 80 per cent of the available resources. And these 400 people on my right would be living on an income of less than $2 per day.
This underprivileged group of people on my right is no less intelligent or less worthy than their fellow human beings on the other side of the aisle. They were simply born into this fate.
In the real world, this imbalance in living conditions inevitably leads to inequality of opportunity, and in many cases loss of hope. And what is worse, all too often the plight of the poor is compounded by and results in human rights abuses, a lack of good governance, and a deep sense of injustice. This combination naturally creates a most fertile breeding ground for civil wars, organized crime, and extremism in its different forms.
In regions where conflicts have been left to fester for decades, countries continue to look for ways to offset their insecurities or project their 'power'. In some cases, they may be tempted to seek their own weapons of mass destruction, like others who have preceded them.
* * * * * * *
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Fifteen years ago, when the Cold War ended, many of us hoped for a new world order to emerge. A world order rooted in human solidarity – a world order that would be equitable, inclusive and effective.
But today we are nowhere near that goal. We may have torn down the walls between East and West, but we have yet to build the bridges between North and South – the rich and the poor.
Consider our development aid record. Last year, the nations of the world spent over $1 trillion on armaments. But we contributed less than 10 per cent of that amount – a mere $80 billion – as official development assistance to the developing parts of the world, where 850 million people suffer from hunger.
My friend James Morris heads the World Food Programme, whose task it is to feed the hungry. He recently told me, "If I could have just 1 per cent of the money spent on global armaments, no one in this world would go to bed hungry."
It should not be a surprise then that poverty continues to breed conflict. Of the 13 million deaths due to armed conflict in the last ten years, 9 million occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, where the poorest of the poor live.
Consider also our approach to the sanctity and value of human life. In the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, we all grieved deeply, and expressed outrage at this heinous crime – and rightly so. But many people today are unaware that, as the result of civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 3.8 million people have lost their lives since 1998.
Are we to conclude that our priorities are skewed, and our approaches uneven?
* * * * * * *
Ladies and Gentlemen. With this 'big picture' in mind, we can better understand the changing landscape in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
There are three main features to this changing landscape: the emergence of an extensive black market in nuclear material and equipment; the proliferation of nuclear weapons and sensitive nuclear technology; and the stagnation in nuclear disarmament.
Today, with globalization bringing us ever closer together, if we choose to ignore the insecurities of some, they will soon become the insecurities of all.
Equally, with the spread of advanced science and technology, as long as some of us choose to rely on nuclear weapons, we continue to risk that these same weapons will become increasingly attractive to others.
I have no doubt that, if we hope to escape self-destruction, then nuclear weapons should have no place in our collective conscience, and no role in our security.
To that end, we must ensure – absolutely – that no more countries acquire these deadly weapons.
We must see to it that nuclear-weapon states take concrete steps towards nuclear disarmament.
And we must put in place a security system that does not rely on nuclear deterrence.
* * * * * * *
Are these goals realistic and within reach? I do believe they are. But then three steps are urgently required.
First, keep nuclear and radiological material out of the hands of extremist groups. In 2001, the IAEA together with the international community launched a worldwide campaign to enhance the security of such material. Protecting nuclear facilities. Securing powerful radioactive sources. Training law enforcement officials. Monitoring border crossings. In four years, we have completed perhaps 50 per cent of the work. But this is not fast enough, because we are in a race against time.
Second, tighten control over the operations for producing the nuclear material that could be used in weapons. Under the current system, any country has the right to master these operations for civilian uses. But in doing so, it also masters the most difficult steps in making a nuclear bomb.
To overcome this, I am hoping that we can make these operations multinational – so that no one country can have exclusive control over any such operation. My plan is to begin by setting up a reserve fuel bank, under IAEA control, so that every country will be assured that it will get the fuel needed for its bona fide peaceful nuclear activities. This assurance of supply will remove the incentive – and the justification – for each country to develop its own fuel cycle. We should then be able to agree on a moratorium on new national facilities, and to begin work on multinational arrangements for enrichment, fuel production, waste disposal and reprocessing.
We must also strengthen the verification system. IAEA inspections are the heart and soul of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. To be effective, it is essential that we are provided with the necessary authority, information, advanced technology, and resources. And our inspections must be backed by the UN Security Council, to be called on in cases of non-compliance.
Third, accelerate disarmament efforts. We still have eight or nine countries who possess nuclear weapons. We still have 27,000 warheads in existence. I believe this is 27,000 too many.
A good start would be if the nuclear-weapon states reduced the strategic role given to these weapons. More than 15 years after the end of the Cold War, it is incomprehensible to many that the major nuclear-weapon states operate with their arsenals on hair-trigger alert – such that, in the case of a possible launch of a nuclear attack, their leaders could have only 30 minutes to decide whether to retaliate, risking the devastation of entire nations in a matter of minutes.
These are three concrete steps that, I believe, can readily be taken. Protect the material and strengthen verification. Control the fuel cycle. Accelerate disarmament efforts.
But that is not enough. The hard part is: how do we create an environment in which nuclear weapons – like slavery or genocide – are regarded as a taboo and a historical anomaly?
* * * * * * *
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Whether one believes in evolution, intelligent design, or Divine Creation, one thing is certain. Since the beginning of history, human beings have been at war with each other, under the pretext of religion, ideology, ethnicity and other reasons. And no civilization has ever willingly given up its most powerful weapons. We seem to agree today that we can share modern technology, but we still refuse to acknowledge that our values – at their very core – are shared values.
I am an Egyptian Muslim, educated in Cairo and New York, and now living in Vienna. My wife and I have spent half our lives in the North, half in the South. And we have experienced first hand the unique nature of the human family and the common values we all share.
Shakespeare speaks of every single member of that family in The Merchant of Venice, when he asks: "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
And lest we forget:
There is no religion that was founded on intolerance – and no religion that does not value the sanctity of human life.
Judaism asks that we value the beauty and joy of human existence.
Christianity says we should treat our neighbours as we would be treated.
Islam declares that killing one person unjustly is the same as killing all of humanity.
Hinduism recognizes the entire universe as one family.
Buddhism calls on us to cherish the oneness of all creation.
Some would say that it is too idealistic to believe in a society based on tolerance and the sanctity of human life, where borders, nationalities and ideologies are of marginal importance. To those I say, this is not idealism, but rather realism, because history has taught us that war rarely resolves our differences. Force does not heal old wounds; it opens new ones.
* * * * * * *
Ladies and Gentlemen.
I have talked about our efforts to combat the misuse of nuclear energy. Let me now tell you how this very same energy is used for the benefit of humankind.
At the IAEA, we work daily on every continent to put nuclear and radiation techniques in the service of humankind. In Vietnam, farmers plant rice with greater nutritional value that was developed with IAEA assistance. Throughout Latin America, nuclear technology is being used to map underground aquifers, so that water supplies can be managed sustainably. In Ghana, a new radiotherapy machine is offering cancer treatment to thousands of patients. In the South Pacific, Japanese scientists are using nuclear techniques to study climate change. In India, eight new nuclear plants are under construction, to provide clean electricity for a growing nation – a case in point of the rising expectation for a surge in the use of nuclear energy worldwide.
These projects, and a thousand others, exemplify the IAEA ideal: Atoms for Peace.
But the expanding use of nuclear energy and technology also makes it crucial that nuclear safety and security are maintained at the highest level.
Since the Chernobyl accident, we have worked all over the globe to raise nuclear safety performance. And since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, we have worked with even greater intensity on nuclear security. On both fronts, we have built an international network of legal norms and performance standards. But our most tangible impact has been on the ground. Hundreds of missions, in every part of the world, with international experts making sure nuclear activities are safe and secure.
I am very proud of the 2,300 hard working men and women that make up the IAEA staff – the colleagues with whom I share this honour. Some of them are here with me today. We come from over 90 countries. We bring many different perspectives to our work. Our diversity is our strength.
We are limited in our authority. We have a very modest budget. And we have no armies.
But armed with the strength of our convictions, we will continue to speak truth to power. And we will continue to carry out our mandate with independence and objectivity.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a powerful message for us – to endure in our efforts to work for security and development. A durable peace is not a single achievement, but an environment, a process and a commitment.
* * * * * * *
Ladies and Gentlemen.
The picture I have painted today may have seemed somewhat grim. Let me conclude by telling you why I have hope.
I have hope because the positive aspects of globalization are enabling nations and peoples to become politically, economically and socially interdependent, making war an increasingly unacceptable option.
Among the 25 members of the European Union, the degree of economic and socio-political dependencies has made the prospect of the use of force to resolve differences almost absurd. The same is emerging with regard to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, with some 55 member countries from Europe, Central Asia and North America. Could these models be expanded to a world model, through the same creative multilateral engagement and active international cooperation, where the strong are just and the weak secure?
I have hope because civil society is becoming better informed and more engaged. They are pressing their governments for change – to create democratic societies based on diversity, tolerance and equality. They are proposing creative solutions. They are raising awareness, donating funds, working to transform civic spirit from the local to the global. Working to bring the human family closer together.
We now have the opportunity, more than at any time before, to give an affirmative answer to one of the oldest questions of all time: "Am I my brother's keeper?"
What is required is a new mindset and a change of heart, to be able to see the person across the ocean as our neighbour.
Finally, I have hope because of what I see in my children, and some of their generation.
I took my first trip abroad at the age of 19. My children were even more fortunate than I. They had their first exposure to foreign culture as infants, and they were raised in a multicultural environment. And I can say absolutely that my son and daughter are oblivious to colour and race and nationality. They see no difference between their friends Noriko, Mafupo, Justin, Saulo and Hussam; to them, they are only fellow human beings and good friends.
Globalization, through travel, media and communication, can also help us – as it has with my children and many of their peers – to see each other simply as human beings.
* * * * * * *
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Imagine what would happen if the nations of the world spent as much on development as on building the machines of war. Imagine a world where every human being would live in freedom and dignity. Imagine a world in which we would shed the same tears when a child dies in Darfur or Vancouver. Imagine a world where we would settle our differences through diplomacy and dialogue and not through bombs or bullets. Imagine if the only nuclear weapons remaining were the relics in our museums. Imagine the legacy we could leave to our children.
Imagine that such a world is within our grasp.
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