Rice urges U.N. to stand up to Iran nuclear bid

By Paul Taylor and Sue Pleming

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice urged the United Nations on Saturday to stand
up to Iran, which she said was seeking a nuclear weapons
capability that would undermine global security.

Iran’s new president was to unveil proposals later in the
day intended to allay international suspicions over its nuclear
ambitions, with Western powers poised to haul Tehran before the
U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

What President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tells the U.N. General
Assembly may determine whether the world nuclear watchdog moves
next week to report Iran’s secretive atomic program to the
highest U.N. body, diplomats said.

Before he spoke, Rice told the assembly the Security
Council should take up the case unless Tehran returned to talks
with the European Union and abandoned “its plans for a nuclear
weapons capability.”

But she omitted harsher anti-Iranian remarks in her
prepared text and left the timing of a U.N. referral open.

“When diplomacy has been exhausted, the Security Council
must become involved,” Rice said.

Iran swears its program, concealed from the International
Atomic Energy Agency for 18 years, is purely for civilian
energy purposes.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned the world in his
opening address that the consensus underlying the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty was badly frayed while nations pointed
fingers at each other rather than working for solutions.

“Yet we face growing risks of proliferation and
catastrophic terrorism, and the stakes are too high to continue
down a dangerous path of diplomatic brinkmanship,” he said.

JOINT VENTURES

Iran last month spurned a European package of economic,
security and technology incentives for it to abandon sensitive
nuclear work and reactivated a factory converting uranium ore
into gas, prompting the European Union to break off talks.

Diplomats at IAEA headquarters in Vienna said Ahmadinejad
was expected to revive a proposal to turn Iran’s uranium
enrichment program into an international joint venture, which
European countries had rejected in earlier negotiating rounds.

“We expect Ahmadinejad to propose some kind of complex
internationalization of the issue, but if they stick to their
determination to do uranium enrichment, they are heading for
the Security Council,” a European diplomat said.

Rice and European Union ministers sowed doubts about the
timing of a vote to refer Iran to the top U.N. body with
comments this week, but diplomats said the Western powers were
determined to press for a vote this month.

European diplomats said the three European powers that have
been negotiating with Iran — Britain, France and Germany —
had adopted a softer tone to be seen as giving Ahmadinejad a
chance and to win over waverers on the IAEA board.

They said Washington and the three EU powers believed they
had the support of at least 20 countries on the 35-member
board, which meets beginning on Monday. One option being
considered was to put forward a resolution but hold off a vote
for two or three weeks to give Iran a final chance to halt
uranium conversion.

Nuclear powers Russia, China, India and Pakistan are all
reluctant to back a referral and diplomats say Iran, the
world’s second-biggest oil producer, is convinced it has the
upper hand and has little to fear from the Security Council.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said after discussing Iran
with U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday that diplomacy was
far from exhausted and there was still room for negotiation.

The council has the power to take action against Iran
ranging from a verbal slap on the wrist to a total trade ban.
But sanctions are a very remote prospect.

IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei has urged the Western powers
to wait but the diplomats said delay would only embolden Iran
to push on toward nuclear fuel enrichment, having “got away”
with the precursor phase of uranium conversion.

Besides, the diplomatic arithmetic would get tougher when
more nonaligned nations join the IAEA board later this month.

(Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau in Vienna)