Iran accepts agenda deal

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran on Tuesday accepted a compromise ending its objections to the agenda of a global meeting on how to shore up the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, averting a collapse of the session after days of deadlock.

Tehran had blocked consensus on the agenda over a passage "reaffirming the need for full compliance" with the NPT, arguing this was a blank cheque to target Iranian nuclear activity to the exclusion of other treaty issues requiring debate.

Iran, which denies Western charges of noncompliance with NPT safeguards but has been hit with U.N. sanctions, agreed to a footnote saying "compliance" meant "with all provisions" of the treaty.

The 130 NPT states attending the meeting then adopted the agenda by consensus, prompting relieved applause in the chamber.

Introduced by South Africa, the attachment was designed to assure Iran that debate would also push states with atomic bombs to do more to heed NPT commitments to do away with them, not just pressure Tehran over its nuclear fuel programme.

The Islamic Republic rejects as unfounded Western suspicions that it is covertly trying to build atom bombs behind the facade of a civilian uranium enrichment programme within NPT terms.

But Tehran has not fully cooperated with U.N. nuclear watchdog investigations begun after sensitive Iranian nuclear fuel research was exposed by Iranian exiles in 2002. Iran's acceptance of the compromise meant that the two-week gathering, due to run until Friday, could start substantive debate on setting priorities for follow-up meetings leading to the next decision-making NPT Review Conference in 2010.

The agenda row that paralysed the meeting almost from its start on April 30 mirrored the standoff between Western powers and Iran over its refusal to stop enriching uranium.