EU nuclear draft would send Iran to Security Council

By Louis Charbonneau

BERLIN (Reuters) – European powers began circulating a
draft resolution on Wednesday that asks the U.N. nuclear
watchdog to report Iran to the Security Council, though
diplomats said any U.N. sanctions would be a long way off.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the move.
“It is clear this is politically motivated,” he told reporters
when asked about the text drafted by France, Britain and
Germany.

“We are asking they step down from their ivory towers and
act with a little logic,” he added.

The West suspects Iran is seeking nuclear arms. Tehran,
which resumed uranium enrichment research last week, says its
nuclear program aims only to generate electricity.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said nuclear
weapons were against Islamic teachings, as well as Iranian
interests, but he vowed to pursue atomic energy.

“The Islamic Republic, based on its principles, without
being scared of the fuss created, will continue on its path of
scientific developments and the world cannot influence the
Iranian nation’s will,” state television quoted him as saying.

“The International Atomic Energy Agency has accepted that
we are now part of the atomic club,” said Khamenei.

Britain, France and Germany want the IAEA’s 35-nation board
to meet on February 2-3 to vote on a draft resolution that
would refer Iran to the Security Council, ratcheting up
diplomatic pressure on Tehran and opening the door to eventual
sanctions.

U.S. and European officials say a majority on the IAEA
board favors referral, but they want as much support as they
can muster from countries like Russia, China and other
skeptics.

An EU diplomat said the draft text asks Iran “to help the
(IAEA) clarify questions regarding possible nuclear weapons
activities” and calls on IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei “to
transmit a copy of this resolution to the Security Council.”

LIMITED OPTIONS

Some Western officials have said they believe simply
hauling Iran to the Security Council for censure could prompt a
change of heart in Tehran, seen as keen to avoid pariah status.

Any move to use full-scale sanctions against Iran, let
alone military action, could send world oil prices rocketing
and reopen some of the international rifts opened by the Iraq
war.

For now, European powers are working closely with
Washington on tackling Iran’s nuclear ambitions, their unity
reinforced by Tehran’s rebuffs to their diplomatic efforts and
by Ahmadinejad’s calls for the destruction of Israel.

Russia and China, veto-wielding members of the Security
Council, share some of the West’s concerns, but both oppose
U.N. sanctions that could hurt their commercial interests in
Iran.

“China doesn’t like seeing sanctions and armed force being
whipped out to resolve international disputes,” an analysis in
the state-controlled China Youth Daily said on Wednesday.

China has said it wants EU-Iran talks to resume, but has
not said it will block referring Tehran to the Security
Council.

Nor has Moscow, which is taking a harder line than Beijing,
noting that Iran has removed the basis for talks with the EU
trio by resuming nuclear fuel research. It has signaled it will
not oppose reporting Tehran to the Council.

The chief of France’s defense staff said the idea of Iran
possessing a nuclear weapon was “a real nightmare” but added
that a negotiated solution remained possible and that any hasty
resort to military action would be “completely mad.”

“That would create a dreadful drama in the Middle East,”
General Henri Bentegeat told Europe 1 radio. “Maybe one day we
will get to that point. But today it is exclusively the
diplomats who are having their say.”

The EU draft asks IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei to keep up
inspections to try to provide “credible assurances regarding
the absence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities in
Iran.”

The text, being circulated among key IAEA board members,
may undergo changes as they discuss it.

If approved, it would put the matter before the Security
Council for the first time since Iranian exile dissidents
accused Iran of hiding a uranium enrichment plant in August
2002, setting of the standoff with the West.

The EU and developing nations on the IAEA board had
resisted pressure from Washington since September 2003 for Iran
to be reported to the council, buying time for negotiations
which Britain, France and Germany abandoned last week.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Parinoosh Arami
in Tehran, Kerstin Gehmlich in Paris and Chris Buckley in
Beijing)