Hopes for a peaceful resolution of the Iran crisis rest on the success of a “work plan” devised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to resolve concerns about Iran's nuclear past.
Iran's new chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, closer to confrontational president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than his predecessor Ari Larijani, stated on 26 October that Tehran's nuclear policy remained “totally unchanged”.
“Stop hyping threat”
On 28 October, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said: “we cannot give Iran a pass right now, because there is still a lot of question marks,” but it was time “to stop... hyping the Iranian issue,” warning that military force could spark a global “conflagration”, and perhaps even “accelerate a drive by Iran, even if they are not working on a nuclear weapon today, to go for a nuclear weapon.”
UN officials continue to visit Iran as part of the work plan.