EU ratchets up pressure on defiant Iran

VIENNA - The EU has turned up the pressure on Iran with a draft resolution reporting Tehran's nuclear program to the UN Security Council, but diplomats said Russia was strongly opposed.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator reacted angrily, warning that Tehran might pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and resume uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for energy or bombs, if reported.

"If you use the language of force Iran will have no choice but to ... leave the framework of the NPT ... and to resume enrichment," Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told a news conference.

Although Iran resumed uranium processing at Isfahan last month, prompting the EU action, Tehran has yet to restart enrichment, the most sensitive part of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Larijani also said the world's fourth biggest oil producer may link countries' access to its oil to whether they support Iran. Tehran says its nuclear program is for generating electricity and denies seeking nuclear bombs.

The EU draft, obtained by Reuters, asks the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "to report to all members of the Agency and to the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations ... Iran's many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply with its NPT Safeguards Agreement".

Iran signed the NPT, the benchmark arms control treaty, in 1968. The IAEA is required to report breaches of the NPT to the Security Council, which can impose economic sanctions.

The United States and European Union suspect Iran's nuclear fuel program, which it hid from the IAEA for 18 years, is a front for developing weapons.

Diplomats on the IAEA board, holding its quarterly meeting this week, said the EU draft had been informally distributed to the 35 IAEA board members and could be officially submitted to the board as early as Wednesday.

However, given the opposition of countries like China, Brazil, South Africa and above all Russia, it was unclear whether the IAEA board would vote on it this week.

"They (the EU) might just table the resolution but the board would take no action," another diplomat said, adding that the EU had 20 or 21 firm 'yes' votes out of the 35 board members, far short of the overwhelming majority the Europeans would like.

The EU draft will probably undergo revisions based on comments from Russia and China, as well as South Africa and the other 13 board members from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), most of which oppose the idea of a Security Council report.

The draft resolution does not mention sanctions.

It does, however, recommend that the Security Council urge Iran to allow the IAEA to inspect any sites it wants to visit, whether or not Iran is legally bound to do so. It also wants the Council to tell Iran to resume both talks with the EU and a freeze of sensitive nuclear work that Tehran ended last month.

Responding to Iran's repeated suggestion that a Security Council report was a prelude to military action, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that was nonsense.

- REUTERS