Iran likely headed to security council
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-02 09:10

After months of fruitless negotiations, European nations set the stage Wednesday for reporting Iran to the powerful U.N. Security Council by the end of the week because of concerns the Islamic country's nuclear program is not "exclusively for peaceful purposes."

Iran remained defiant, warning such action will provoke it into doing exactly what the world wants it to renounce — starting full-scale uranium enrichment, a possible pathway to nuclear weapons.

An unidentified technician shows Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, second right, around as he visits Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Wednesday, Feb.1, 2006. Earlier Wednesday, Ahmadinejad derided the United States as a 'hollow superpower' and vowed to pursue the nuclear program whatever pressure is brought to bear. Others are unidentified. [AP]

Positions appeared to be hardening on the eve of an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting after European nations formally submitted a U.S.-backed motion for the IAEA's 35-nation board to refer Iran to the Security Council. The two-day board meeting was to start Thursday.

"Nuclear energy is our right, and we will resist until this right is fully realized," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in the southern Iran city of Bushehr, site of a Russian-built power plant. "Our nation can't give in to the coercion of some bully countries who imagine they are the whole world."

Speaking a day after President Bush declared in his State of the Union address that "the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons," Ahmadinejad derided the United States as a "hollow superpower" and vowed to pursue the nuclear program.

The IAEA board was expected to approve the motion easily because Russia and China — which both have veto power on the Security Council — now support reporting Iran following months of opposition.

"Iran will find itself before the Security Council," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington. "Iran is working to develop a nuclear weapon."

The developments were a boost to the United States, the main proponent of referral. Washington has waited years for international suspicions of Iran's nuclear ambitions to translate into support among board nations.

Iran's decision Jan. 10 to restart small-scale uranium enrichment — and Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel to be wiped off the map — apparently rattled Beijing and Moscow. Iran became more insistent on its right to pursue a nuclear program and less cooperative in talks with European negotiators after the election of the hard-line Ahmadinejad last June.

The call for referral was contained in a confidential resolution obtained by The Associated Press. It "requests the director general to report to the Security Council" on steps Iran needs to take to dispel international suspicion it could be seeking to make nuclear arms.

If the board approves referral as expected, it will launch a protracted process that could end in Security Council sanctions for Tehran.

Still, any such moves are weeks or months away. Moscow and Beijing support referral only on condition that the council take no action until at least March, when the board next meets to review the status of an IAEA probe into Iran's nuclear program and recommends further action.

Ali Larijani, Tehran's top nuclear negotiator, warned that Iran would start large-scale uranium enrichment at its Natanz plant and stop intrusive U.N. inspections of its facilities if reported to the Security Council.

"Natanz is ready for work. We only need to notify the IAEA that we are resuming (large-scale) enrichment. When we do that is our call. If they (report Iran to the Security Council), we will do it quickly," Larijani said.

Iran insists its nuclear program is civilian only and has no other purpose than to generate power. Enrichment can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material needed to build a warhead.

Iran's threat to resume large-scale enrichment immediately, however, appeared overblown.

Tehran is far from its ultimate goal of running 50,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium in the central city of Natanz for what it says will be the fuel requirements of its nearly finished Russian-built Bushehr reactor. It has fewer than 1,000 centrifuges.

But experts say Iran has enough black-market components in storage to build the 1,500 operating centrifuges it would need to make the 45 pounds of highly enriched uranium needed for one crude weapon.

A brief report prepared for the IAEA board session expressed concern about a possible linkage between "The Green Salt Project" — small-scale experiments linked to uranium enrichment — and suspected tests of "high explosives and the design of a missile re-entry vehicle, all of which could have a military nuclear dimension."

The draft to be voted on calls for Iran to:

_Reestablish a freeze on uranium enrichment and related activities.

_Consider stopping construction of a heavy water reactor that could be the source of plutonium for weapons.

_Formally ratify an agreement allowing the IAEA greater inspecting authority.

_Give the IAEA additional power in its investigation of Iran's nuclear program, including "access to individuals" for interviews, as well as to documentation on its black market nuclear purchases, equipment that could be used for nuclear and non-nuclear purposes and "certain military-owned workshops" where nuclear activities might be going on.

In arguing for involvement of the top U.N. body, the text expresses "serious concerns about Iran's nuclear program." And it mentions "the absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes."