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EU, US press for UN action on Iran nuclear plans

Posted on: Monday, 19 September 2005, 10:52 CDT

By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) - The European Union and the United States pressed the U.N. atomic watchdog on Monday to bring Iran's nuclear programme before the Security Council over suspicions it wants atomic bombs, but Russia called for a delay.

Diplomats said Britain, France and Germany hoped to submit a draft resolution this week to the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which began meeting on Monday, to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council after it resumed sensitive nuclear work last month.

Several of the other 25 EU countries had expressed reservations about sending Tehran to the Council, but at a meeting of the bloc's representatives in Vienna on Monday, they reached a consensus backing the EU trio's plan.

"There is no point in delaying it (a Security Council report)," an EU diplomat said, summing up the conclusion of the EU meeting in Vienna. "The real problem is Russia. It will be difficult to convince the Russians."

At a breakfast meeting with EU foreign ministers in New York, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged them to consider delaying their plan to involve the U.N.'s highest body.

Lavrov made the appeal on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, saying it was vital to maintain the unity of the international community to put pressure on Iran, two European participants, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. Lavrov did not rule out backing a referral later, they said.

Russia is not alone. Most of the non-aligned developing countries on the IAEA board are sympathetic to Iran's insistence it has a right to run a peaceful nuclear programme to generate electricity. Iran denies it is seeking atomic bombs.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei also called on Iran and the EU trio to avoid confrontation and return to the negotiating table.

One EU diplomat said it was unclear if the EU powers would want to put their resolution to a vote if Moscow was against it. In this case, he said they could submit it to the IAEA board but delay any vote on it while continuing to pressure the Iranians.

U.S. SAYS U.N. REPORT "LONG OVERDUE"

The United States, which has long accused Tehran of seeking nuclear bombs, is pushing for fast action after Britain, France and Germany failed to convince Iran to mothball its nuclear fuel programme in return for political and economic incentives.

"We think a report to the Security Council is long overdue," U.S. ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte told Reuters.

"The board had wanted Iran to pursue a course of cooperation and negotiation," Schulte said about two years of EU-Iran talks, which collapsed last month. "Instead Iran appears to be pursuing a course of rhetoric and confrontation while continuing the (atomic) fuel cycle activities that give us such concern."

EU diplomats say the EU trio would not seek immediate sanctions against Iran, but ask the Security Council to call on Tehran to refreeze its entire uranium enrichment programme.

Iran, however vowed on Monday to press ahead with its nuclear fuel programme after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday, branded Western efforts to restrict it as "nuclear apartheid."

The official IRNA news agency on Monday quoted Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, as saying Tehran refused to bow to pressure. "We will continue our nuclear activities in the framework of the IAEA regulations."

Twelve of 14 IAEA board members from the Non-Aligned Movement, who met on Monday to forge a common position, believed Iran's case should be resolved within the IAEA, diplomats said, with only Peru and Singapore ready to back a referral.

"Everybody would like to avoid a contentious debate in the Security Council," Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, speaking in New York, told NDTV television news.

The Iran issue has split IAEA board members between Western countries favoring tough action and emerging economies which accuse the West of trying to deprive poor nations of independent nuclear programs.

Western countries say that since Iran hid its uranium enrichment programme from the IAEA for 18 years, the only way it can prove it is not seeking nuclear bombs is permanently to renounce sensitive nuclear technology altogether.

(Additional reporting by Francois Murphy in Vienna and Paul Taylor at the United Nations)

Source: REUTERS

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