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Iran and United States square up after IAEA vote

Posted on: Saturday, 4 February 2006, 18:27 CST

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.

Source: REUTERS

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