Iran defies UN on nuclear program, sparking calls for action

VIENNA (AFP) - Iran has defied a UN deadline to halt uranium enrichment, the UN nuclear agency said, in a report that prompted calls for tough Security Council action over Tehran's atomic program.

US President George W. Bush said Iran's nuclear ambitions were "dangerous" but that Washington, which fears Tehran is trying to develop atomic weapons, wanted to resolve the dispute "diplomatically and peacefully".

Iran reacted sharply, with hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad saying his country was being denied its right to atomic energy and issuing a veiled threat to cut off ties with the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency.

US and European diplomats said they would push to get a draft resolution before the UN Security Council next week that would impose a legally binding deadline on Iran while China and Russia remained reluctant to endorse possible punitive sanctions.

expiration of a 30-day UN Security Council deadline for Tehran to comply with UN demands to halt its enrichment activities.

Enriched uranium can be used to make fuel for civilian nuclear reactors, but can also serve as the explosive core of atom bombs.

The report said the IAEA had taken samples on April 13 at Iran's enrichment facility in Natanz, "which tend to confirm as of that date the enrichment level (of 3.6 percent) declared by Iran."

It said that during March, Iran completed a 164-machine cascade -- referring to centrifuges arranged in series in order to enrich uranium -- and that another two similar cascades were under construction at Natanz.

Asked if Iran was still carrying out enrichment, a senior official close to the IAEA said the Iranians "are able to get cascades running and get enrichment out," even if some centrifuges had broken down as Iran masters the complicated technology.

Meanwhile, since September Iran has converted some 110 tons of the uranium hexafluoride gas that is the feedstock for enriching uranium. If all of this converted gas were enriched, it would yield enough material for over 10 atom bombs, experts said.

"The report demonstrates the continued defiance of Iran's leaders," US ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte said, warning that the program was clearly accelerating.

Iran says its program is aimed at developing civilian nuclear energy, but British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said London would ask the Security Council "to increase the pressure on Iran so that the international community can be assured its nuclear programme is not a threat to peace and security."

States and Europe ready to seek a Security Council resolution legally obliging Iran to meet IAEA and Council demands.

"We believe the next step is a Chapter 7 resolution making mandatory the existing IAEA resolutions," US Ambassador John Bolton said, making it clear this would not be a sanctions resolution.

If Iran still refuses, such a resolution could, however, pave the way to punishing economic sanctions and even military action, although Tehran's allies and major trading partners Russia and China -- which have vetoes on the Council -- oppose any such move.

Foreign ministers of the five permanent Council members of the Security Council and Germany planned to meet in New York on May 9 to discuss the crisis, a State Department official said Friday.

Political directors of the so-called "P-5 plus one" are due to meet Tuesday in Paris ahead of this meeting.

Iran has said it will not suspend it enrichment activities. "If these regulations that guarantee our rights are used against us, we will totally change our way of dealing with the organisations," said Ahmadinejad Friday, according to the official IRNA agency.

ElBaradei's report said Iran had offered a timetable for cooperation with nuclear inspectors within the next three weeks if the IAEA, rather than the Security Council, oversaw its compliance.

Diplomats described this as a veiled threat that Iran could pull out of the nuclear non-proliferation regime if its atomic ambitions are challenged.

ElBaradei's report also said there had been little progress since a previous assessment and "gaps remain in the agency's knowledge with respect to the scope and content of Iran's centrifuge program."

The report said: "Because of this and other gaps in the agency's knowledge including the role of the military in Iran's nuclear program, the agency is unable to make progress in its efforts to provide assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran."

Iran has failed to come forth with information on work with high-tech P2 centrifuges and on possible military research to put nuclear warheads on missiles, the report said.

It also said the IAEA was unable to rule out that Iran may have received plutonium -- an atomic weapons material -- from abroad.

But Iran's deputy nuclear chief Mohammad Saidi said the IAEA report contained "no negative points" and that the issue should not be taken up by the Security Council.