Iran and United States square up after IAEA vote

By Parisa Hafezi

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Defiant Iran said it would end snap U.N.
nuclear checks on Sunday, a day after the U.N. atomic watchdog
voted to report the Islamic Republic to the Security Council
over concerns about its nuclear program.

Ramping up the rhetoric against Tehran after the vote,
President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the
vote sent a “clear message” to Iran.

“The world will not stand by if Iran continues on the path
to a nuclear weapons capability,” Rice said in a statement.

The International Atomic Energy Agency voted on Saturday to
refer Iran to the Security Council. But the top U.N. body will
take no action, including possibly imposing sanctions, until an
IAEA report on Iran is delivered in March.

The only way Tehran could avoid Security Council action,
U.S. ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte said, was to halt
nuclear fuel enrichment and continue letting IAEA inspectors to
conduct snap checks of Iranian nuclear sites.

But instead of giving in to the latest rebuke from the
West, Iran said it would no longer abide by the so-called
Additional Protocol it signed in 2003 under pressure from the
West allowing for snap inspections.

“Because of the resolution of the IAEA … the organization
should stop voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol
and other cooperation from Sunday,” Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad said on Saturday.

Iran signed the protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty
after saying it had carried out secret atomic work for 18
years.

Iran says its nuclear program is designed solely to
generate electricity, not bombs as the West suspects, and
claims a sovereign right to make uranium fuel on its own soil.
There was no word on Iranian plans on fuel enrichment.

Germany, France and Britain, the “EU3,” initiated the IAEA
resolution but concrete Security Council action is likely to
come slowly, if at all.

There are stubborn divisions among its five permanent
members — themselves nuclear powers — over possible sanctions
against Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil exporter.

Beijing and Moscow, keen to preserve energy trade with
Iran, oppose moves toward punitive sanctions, raising the risk
of the Iranian nuclear issue stalling in the Security Council.

The United States, Britain and France complete the five.

Bush said Saturday’s vote was the start not the end of
intensified diplomatic efforts to ensure Iran does not develop
nuclear weapons.

But Sen. John McCain urged the world to impose sanctions on
Iran, bypassing if needed the Security Council, where veto
holders China and Russia have resisted U.S. calls for quick
action against Iran.

“Every option must remain on the table. There is only one
thing worse than military action, and that is a nuclear-armed
Iran,” McCain told a security conference in Munich, Germany.