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Iran likely headed to security council
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-02 09:10 After months of fruitless negotiations, European
nations set the stage Wednesday for reporting Iran to the powerful U.N. Security
Council by the end of the week because of concerns the Islamic country's nuclear
program is not "exclusively for peaceful purposes."
Iran remained defiant, warning such action will provoke it into doing exactly
what the world wants it to renounce — starting full-scale uranium enrichment, a
possible pathway to nuclear weapons.
An unidentified
technician shows Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, second right,
around as he visits Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Wednesday, Feb.1, 2006.
Earlier Wednesday, Ahmadinejad derided the United States as a 'hollow
superpower' and vowed to pursue the nuclear program whatever pressure is
brought to bear. Others are unidentified. [AP] |
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Positions appeared to be hardening on the eve of an International Atomic
Energy Agency meeting after European nations formally submitted a U.S.-backed
motion for the IAEA's 35-nation board to refer Iran to the Security Council. The
two-day board meeting was to start Thursday.
"Nuclear energy is our right, and we will resist until this right is fully
realized," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in the
southern Iran city of Bushehr, site of a Russian-built power plant. "Our nation
can't give in to the coercion of some bully countries who imagine they are the
whole world."
Speaking a day after President Bush declared in his State of the Union
address that "the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to
gain nuclear weapons," Ahmadinejad derided the United States as a "hollow
superpower" and vowed to pursue the nuclear program.
The IAEA board was expected to approve the motion easily because Russia and
China — which both have veto power on the Security Council — now support
reporting Iran following months of opposition.
"Iran will find itself before the Security Council," State Department
spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington. "Iran is working to develop a
nuclear weapon."
The developments were a boost to the United States, the main proponent of
referral. Washington has waited years for international suspicions of Iran's
nuclear ambitions to translate into support among board nations.
Iran's decision Jan. 10 to restart small-scale uranium enrichment — and
Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel to be wiped off the map — apparently rattled
Beijing and Moscow. Iran became more insistent on its right to pursue a nuclear
program and less cooperative in talks with European negotiators after the
election of the hard-line Ahmadinejad last June.
The call for referral was contained in a confidential resolution obtained by
The Associated Press. It "requests the director general to report to the
Security Council" on steps Iran needs to take to dispel international suspicion
it could be seeking to make nuclear arms.
If the board approves referral as expected, it will launch a protracted
process that could end in Security Council sanctions for Tehran.
Still, any such moves are weeks or months away. Moscow and Beijing support
referral only on condition that the council take no action until at least March,
when the board next meets to review the status of an IAEA probe into Iran's
nuclear program and recommends further action.
Ali Larijani, Tehran's top nuclear negotiator, warned that Iran would start
large-scale uranium enrichment at its Natanz plant and stop intrusive U.N.
inspections of its facilities if reported to the Security Council.
"Natanz is ready for work. We only need to notify the IAEA that we are
resuming (large-scale) enrichment. When we do that is our call. If they (report
Iran to the Security Council), we will do it quickly," Larijani said.
Iran insists its nuclear program is civilian only and has no other purpose
than to generate power. Enrichment can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor
or the material needed to build a warhead.
Iran's threat to resume large-scale enrichment immediately, however, appeared
overblown.
Tehran is far from its ultimate goal of running 50,000 centrifuges to enrich
uranium in the central city of Natanz for what it says will be the fuel
requirements of its nearly finished Russian-built Bushehr reactor. It has fewer
than 1,000 centrifuges.
But experts say Iran has enough black-market components in storage to build
the 1,500 operating centrifuges it would need to make the 45 pounds of highly
enriched uranium needed for one crude weapon.
A brief report prepared for the IAEA board session expressed concern about a
possible linkage between "The Green Salt Project" — small-scale experiments
linked to uranium enrichment — and suspected tests of "high explosives and the
design of a missile re-entry vehicle, all of which could have a military nuclear
dimension."
The draft to be voted on calls for Iran to:
_Reestablish a freeze on uranium enrichment and related activities.
_Consider stopping construction of a heavy water reactor that could be the
source of plutonium for weapons.
_Formally ratify an agreement allowing the IAEA greater inspecting authority.
_Give the IAEA additional power in its investigation of Iran's nuclear
program, including "access to individuals" for interviews, as well as to
documentation on its black market nuclear purchases, equipment that could be
used for nuclear and non-nuclear purposes and "certain military-owned workshops"
where nuclear activities might be going on.
In arguing for involvement of the top U.N. body, the text expresses "serious
concerns about Iran's nuclear program." And it mentions "the absence of
confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes."
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