VIENNA, Austria - Pressured even by its allies, Iran on Tuesday accepted a compromise on the agenda text of a 130-nation nuclear conference, clearing the way to resolve a week-long deadlock that threatened to end the gathering.
The meeting -- like others to be convened annually -- is meant to prepare the ground for senior policy makers at a follow up conference in 2010 that will try to make the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty more effective. As such, it has no decision-making powers.
Still, its failure would have damaged the chances of progress at subsequent meetings, and at the 2010 conference, by hardening opposing fronts and making consensus decision-making even more difficult.
Iran's decision allowed Tehran to deflect criticism that it was prepared to see the meeting end in failure rather than be targeted for its defiance of UN Security Council demands that it mothball its uranium enrichment program.
Instead, the Iranians appeared to be hoping that their decision to give in would put them in the role of saving the meeting from ending without any substantial progress.
And if their stonewalling since the gathering opened April 30 was an effort to stifle criticism, they appeared to have gone a ways in achieving their goal. As of last Friday, the conference had only three full days until its scheduled end to focus on anything other than bickering over the agenda.
The issue stalling the meeting had been Tehran's refusal to accept a phrase calling for the "need for full compliance with" the nonproliferation treaty.
The South African proposal accepted Tuesday will footnote that phrase to the agenda to specify that "all provisions" of the pact must be fully observed -- an allusion to the need for the United States and other nuclear weapons states to disarm.
Iranian chief delegate Ali Ashgar Soltanieh spoke of the "flexibility of my delegation" in accepting the compromise.
Still, Tehran's decision to give in reflected its isolation. Even delegates of nonaligned countries that normally take Iran's side in any dispute over its nuclear program spoke critically of the Islamic Republic's approach as the meeting dragged on with no progress.
Before Tuesday's developments, delegates had evoked memories of the 2005 nonproliferation treaty review conference, which failed to make substantive progress because of similar bickering over procedure.
The statement Tuesday by Soltanieh that "my government can accept the proposal by South Africa" appeared to catch most delegations by surprise. Before the statement, Iranians had shown no signs of movement after the proposal was floated on Friday.
Subsequent approval was followed by brief, but relieved applause.
But the U.S. delegation criticized the Iranians, suggesting the delay had been unnecessary because it was clear all along that the phrase "full compliance" meant acceptance of all treaty provisions.
"It's been disappointing that, as a result of Iranian obstruction of procedure, it has taken so long to get to the point of beginning substantive discussion," chief U.S. delegate Christopher A. Ford told reporters.
The phrase "all provisions" that Iran had been holding out for is a "restatement of the obvious," he said.
Iran argues it is entitled to enrich uranium under the treaty provision giving all pact members the right to develop peaceful programs. But suspicions bred by nearly two decades of clandestine nuclear activities, including questionable black market acquisitions of equipment and blueprints that appear linked to weapons plans, have led the UN Security Council to impose sanctions over Tehran's refusal to mothball its program -- which can generate energy or produce the fissile core of nuclear warheads.
The nonproliferation treaty calls on nations to pledge not to pursue nuclear weapons in exchange for a commitment by five nuclear powers -- the U.S., Russia, Britain, France and China -- to move toward nuclear disarmament. India and Pakistan, known nuclear weapons states, remain outside the treaty, as does Israel, which is considered to have such arms but has not acknowledged it.
