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UN atomic watchdog to issue key report on Iran
By Michael Adler
AFP
VIENNA
Petroleumworld.com 02 22 06The UN atomic watchdog was to issue a report Thursday expected to document Iran's defiance of calls to rein in its nuclear program and open Tehran up to wider UN sanctions.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will report that Iran has pressed ahead with the installation of hundreds of centrigues, the machines which enrich uranium, at an underground bunker in Natanz, diplomats close to the IAEA told AFP.
This means that Iran is increasing rather than freezing uranium enrichment operations, in defiance of a UN Security Council resolution.
Iran insists its programme is only to provide fuel for nuclear power plants, but highly enriched uranium can also provide material to make atomic weapons.
One diplomat said that Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani had clearly told IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei at a meeting in Vienna Tuesday that sanctions would not work against Iran and that Tehran would not stop enrichment or enrichment-related activities under pressure.
The Security Council had in a resolution adopted December 23 imposed limited sanctions on Iran and mandated ElBaradei to report in 60 days on whether Iran had honored the Council's demand to freeze the strategic enrichment work.
In an inteview with CNN on Thursday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered to take up talks with Iran anywhere, at any time, as long as Tehran first stops enriching uranium.
"It is an offer I would renew today," Rice told CNN. "We have, in fact, even under these circumstances, cooperated some in Afghanistan and I think that was useful. So there is a different path."
She added: "Let me just say here publicly, the United States has no desire for confrontation with Iran. None."
Rice was in Berlin where she held talks on Iran with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday insisted on Iran's right to nuclear technology.
"Iranians defend their rights and the nuclear right is a demand of all Iranians. Nobody in the world can deprive them of their rights even one iota," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in northern Iran carried by the ISNA news agency.
According to a diplomat here, Larijani had told ElBaradei that Iran could agree to a compromise under which it would spin centrifuges dry without feedstock uranium gas, but only if the Security Council lifted its sanctions at the same time.
But the United States has rejected any turning of centrifuges, as well as lifting of sanctions ahead of Iran suspending all enrichment work, despite a "time-out" proposal along these lines from ElBaradei.
The limited UN sanctions adopted in December target travel by Iranians involved in nuclear work as well as trade and aid related to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
Diplomats in Vienna said that Britain and France have already drafted a new resolution for tougher sanctions with more economic bite, such as travel bans on high-ranking Iranian officials, freezing Iranian assets abroad and cutting off government-backed loans and credits to Iran.
But a European diplomat said there was grumbling from EU states such as Germany and Italy, and even France, about economic sanctions that would hurt their trade with Iran.
"The United States does not trade with Iran, Britain is also out, there are only a few countries which still have large contracts with Iran," the diplomat said.
Meanwhile, the United States has raised speculation about possible military action by sending a second nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the region.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran was prepared for possible
US military action, but believed dialogue was the best way to resolve the dispute.
Threats would not force Tehran into making concessions, Mottaki said.
ElBaradei, meanwhile, is to meet Friday in Vienna with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, a spokeswoman said.
AFP 22 1228 GMT 02 07
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