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Iran defiant as nuclear deadline expires
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (C) walks during the opening ceremony of a heavy water plant in Arak, 320 kms south of Tehran, 26 August 2006.By Michael Adler
AFP
VIENNA
Petroleumworld.com 08 31 06
Iran refused Thursday to cede "an inch" in its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, openly flouting an August 31 deadline imposed by the UN Security Council for suspending the program.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he would not buckle in the face of mounting pressure, hours before the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog was set to declare Tehran in defiance of the Security Council.
"Iran will not back down an inch in the face of intimidation, aggression and will not accept being deprived of its rights," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in northwestern Iran Thursday.
"The powers of oppression do not want Iran to progress. But I say to them: The Iranian people, including young scientists who have succeeded with empty hands and without your help to reach the summits of nuclear technology, can also develop Iran."
The UN Security Council has mandated that Iran must suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities by August 31, spurred by fears in the West that Tehran is covertly seeking to make the atom bomb. Iran insists the program is aimed at producing electricity.
The United States, France, Britain and Germany were reportedly drawing up plans for a three-stage system of international sanctions designed to force Iran into compliance.
The progressively tougher measures would begin with an embargo on the sale of nuclear-related materials and a limited travel ban for Iranian officials, graduating to a broader travel ban and the freezing of overseas assets and then, if these measures fail, restrictions on commercial flights and World Bank loans, the New York Times reported.
The five permanent members of the council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany have sought to coax Tehran into suspending enrichment by offering a package of security, trade and technology incentives.
But Russia and China have shown great reluctance even to threaten Iran with sanctions.
US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Wednesday he expected sanctions to be imposed within a month.
"We believe the sanctions regime will be agreed to in September by the Security Council and we're going to work towards that with a great deal of energy and termination," he said on CNN.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said senior officials from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States would meet in Europe early next week to begin discussing sanctions against Iran if it is deemed to have flouted the UN deadline.
Just days before the August 31 deadline expired, Tehran started yet another round of uranium enrichment, diplomats said.
"They put small quantities of (feedstock) uranium hexafluoride gas last week" into a cascade line of 164 centrifuges in Natanz, a diplomat close to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Wednesday.
The IAEA, charged with verifying Iran's compliance with the UN ban on it nuclear activities, will send a report Thursday to the UN Security Council.
In an apparent attempt to drive a wedge between the United States and its European partners, President Ahmadinejad called on Europe to solve the row over Iran's nuclear programme through negotiations and act independently Washington, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Thursday.
"By adopting independent and logical policies, the Europeans can change for the better the region's attitude towards them. The Europeans should not follow wrong and aggressive US policies, since the US only thinks about itself," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.
"Sanctions could not dissuade our nations from reaching the peaks of progress," he said during a meeting with former Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzalez in Tehran late Wednesday.
"Mastering the fuel cycle and the production of heavy water was achieved when we were under sanctions, so it is better for the Europeans to be independent in their decisions and to solve this issue through negotiations." Tehran said August 21 it was ready for "serious talks", but did not mention halting enrichment, and has made clear that it intends to pursue nuclear fuel production.
AFP 31 0930 GMT 08 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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