- Published 14:00 01.12.10
- Latest update 14:00 01.12.10
WikiLeaks: New IAEA head 'solidly in U.S. court'
Revelation may add to tension between Amano and Iran at a sensitive time in world diplomacy over Iran's disputed nuclear program.
The UN nuclear watchdog's head Yukiya Amano suggested before he took office last year he was "solidly in the U.S. court" on key issues including Iran, U.S. diplomatic cables cited by the Guardian newspaper said.
The revelation may add to tension between Amano, who is the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Director-General, and Iran at a sensitive time in world diplomacy over the Islamic state's disputed nuclear program.
Talks between Iran and a representative of the six major powers - the United States, France, Russia, Britain, China and Germany - are due to resume next week in Geneva in the first such meeting in more than year.
Western powers accuse Iran of seeking to develop nuclear bombs, a charge Tehran rejects.
Throwing independent weight behind the West's suspicions, Amano said in his first report on Iran in February that the IAEA feared Tehran may be working now to develop a nuclear-armed missile.
Iran has accused Amano, a veteran Japanese diplomat, of bias and relations soured further in June when he said Tehran was hampering the agency's work by barring some of its inspectors.
After Amano was narrowly elected by IAEA member states in July last year but before he took office in December 2009, the U.S. mission in Vienna described him in a cable as a "DG (Director General) of all states, but in agreement with us".
It said Amano had reminded the U.S. ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to developing countries, "but that he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program."
Britain's Guardian newspaper is one of a number of publications worldwide to have had early access to some 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables obtained by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.
Amano, who succeeded Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, was elected to the position thanks to overwhelming support from industrialized states while many developing countries regarded him as a poor communicator and a tool of Western powers.
Another cable cited by the Guardian said a meeting with Amano had illustrated "the very high degree of convergence between his priorities and our own agenda at the IAEA".
The cables also suggested there were staff tensions within the Vienna-based agency, with one quoting Amano as saying he was seeking to replace a senior official with someone who was closer to his own thinking. The official named in the cable is still in his position.
The IAEA and the U.S. mission were not immediately available to comment on the Guardian report.
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