Editorial: Iran must accept fuel without fire

Well before the expiry of a United Nations deadline on Friday, the Government of Iran had made it clear it had no intention of complying with the UN's demand that it cease enriching uranium for nuclear power generation. The regime and its ambassadors in countries such as New Zealand have also gone to some trouble to point out the country's need of a nuclear energy programme for its rapidly growing population and to deny that it has any desire to develop nuclear weapons, which it holds to be contrary to its religion in any case.

But what Iran has failed to explain is why, if it has no wish for a nuclear arsenal, it is not prepared to accept the help it has been offered to switch its planned power stations to the reactor fuels that could not be used in weapons?

In the absence of that acceptance, Iran's intentions remain open to suspicion and no members of the UN Security Council can say much in the country's defence.

The International Atomic Energy Agency will tell the council it has evidence of renewed enrichment work in the days before the deadline and reports that Iran has not met the agency's verification requirements and transparency standards.

It found traces of highly enriched uranium, with a potential use in nuclear explosives.

Russia and China, each with energy contracts in Iran that they will be anxious to protect, will urge further diplomatic efforts to break the deadlock. But the United States says Iran must face consequences for its failure to meet the deadline and it is hard to see how sanctions can be avoided when the six council members dealing with the Iran issue meet in Berlin on Thursday.

Iran has indicated it is willing to talk with a view to restrain its nuclear programme but will not halt the programme as a precondition of further talks. The US is unlikely to agree to that game. It had to work too hard to secure the ultimatum from the Security Council and will insist that Iran face repercussions for its defiance.

In the background, Israel will be doubly anxious to stop the Iranian programme. The stalemate in Lebanon and Israel's failure to destroy Iran's ally, Hizbollah, will have buoyed Tehran and made it more determined to stand firm as its Lebanese proteges did against greater forces. But Israel cannot permit the possibility that an enemy in the region will acquire the bomb and Israel must be counted likely to take pre-emptive action itself if the UN pressure does not have the desired result.

Though Iran has nuclear-armed near-neighbours on both sides - Israel to its west, Pakistan to its east - it cannot imagine the rest of the world allowing further proliferation in that unstable region. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is given to provocative comment but he appears to have his wits about him. He will be playing this stand-off for all that it is worth in his domestic politics but he will not want to paint himself into a corner.

Iran fiercely resents the distrust it has encountered from the US and the West generally ever since its revolution of 1979. The nuclear energy programme at issue now began with Western assistance under the Shah and much of the intransigence in Tehran today arises from resentment that commitments given to the previous regime were denied to its successors.

Former US President Jimmy Carter is said to be making overtures to former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, who is visiting the United States. If those two can establish a back channel for two governments that have never held direct talks, it would be a promising development.

But in the end Iran must accept that its nuclear energy will be generated by a fuel without explosive potential. Any compromise on that score would be too dangerous to contemplate.