New uranium traces found in Iran

BERLIN/BRUSSELS - UN inspectors have found traces of near bomb-grade enriched uranium on nuclear equipment in Iran, diplomats said today, as the EU prepared a declaration that will insist Tehran shelve all enrichment work.

Iran signalled undiminished confidence in a lack of big power resolve against its atomic work with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling Western pressure "psychological propaganda" and the US-mooted, last-resort option of war "unlikely".

The United States and its Western allies suspect Iran's professed ambition to purify uranium to generate electricity is a smokescreen for an atomic bomb programme, a concern stoked by Tehran's 18-year concealment of sensitive enrichment research.

The new discovery by UN inspectors of high-enriched uranium traces in Iran was made on equipment from a former research site razed by Iran in 2004 before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could examine it, diplomats said.

A diplomat in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, confirmed the new finding from the former Lavizan-Shian site but cautioned: "It's no smoking gun. There could be many explanations. But it increases pressure on Iran to come clean about Lavizan."

Reacting to the report, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the students' news agency ISNA:

"These comments lack any importance and do not come from a real source."

Word of the discovery came as EU officials were shaping a "carrots and sticks" offer for Iran. Diplomats hope to have the offer ready in time for a May 19 meeting in London of the five veto-holding big powers on the Security Council plus Germany.

"(The EU) calls on Iranian authorities to cooperate fully with the (UN nuclear watchdog) IAEA, suspend all enrichment -related and reprocessing activities, including research and development," said a draft declaration obtained by Reuters and destined for an EU foreign ministers' meeting on Monday.

But Tehran said on Thursday its nuclear research and development programme, which has already succeeded in producing low-enriched uranium suitable for power plants, would not be halted in return for any Western sweeteners.

The draft statement gave no details of that package but said: "The EU would be prepared to support Iran's development of a safe, sustainable and proliferation-proof civilian nuclear programme if international concerns were fully addressed and confidence in Iran's intentions established."

West's bottom line

Implicit in that formula is that Iran would import enriched uranium rather than produce its own, thus minimising the risk it could produce highly-enriched bomb-grade fuel.

The EU package would expand on an offer made last August which Iran rejected. The new version is likely to contain a mix of assistance to Iran's civil nuclear programme, freer trade with Europe and political incentives, diplomats say.

Russian and Chinese resistance to any UN Security Council resolution that could spawn sanctions on Iran has forced Western powers to try a package of incentives and penalties for Iran.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei warned efforts to resolve the crisis diplomatically may prove in vain unless Washington addressed what he said were Iran's legitimate security concerns.

"When you are talking about security, there is only one country that can talk to Iran and that is the US, it's not Europe," he said at a debate in the Netherlands.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, speaking at an EU-Latin America summit in Vienna, also urged Washington to hold direct talks with Tehran to defuse the nuclear standoff.

"It is important that the United States come to the table and join the European countries and Iran to find a solution," he said.

In response, John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations York, said: "This is not a bilateral issue between the US and Iran. It is an issue between Iran and the world."

He said Washington supported EU-Russian negotiating efforts and added: "We see no point in direct negotiations."

- REUTERS