Vienna – The 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Saturday reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council over fears it wants to produce nuclear arms. Iran responded by saying it would restart full-scale work on uranium enrichment and no longer allow intrusive IAEA inspections of its facilities.
But Iran also said it was still willing to negotiate with the international community over its nuclear program.
“The door for negotiations is still open,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a news conference. “We don’t fear the Security Council. It’s not the end of the world.”
The atomic energy agency’s resolution to report Iran passed by a vote of 27-3.
Only Cuba, Syria and Venezuela voted against the European-drafted resolution. Five countries – Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa – abstained.
Still, the near-consensus came at a price for Washington. Long an advocate of firm Security Council action against Iran, including possible political and economic sanctions, the Americans had to settle for what is essentially a symbolic referral.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad mocked the referral.
“Issue as many resolutions like this as you want and make yourself happy. You can’t prevent the progress of the Iranian nation,” he said in comments carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
In the past, Iran had allowed short-notice, intrusive inspections of its facilities, including military sites.
But parliament passed a law last year requiring the government to block intrusive inspections of Iran’s facilities if the country were brought before the Security Council. It also required the government to resume all suspended nuclear activities, chief among them, uranium enrichment.
However, Ahmadinejad stressed that “all the country’s peaceful activities will remain within the framework of the Nonproliferation Treaty.”
After years of opposition, Russia and China backed the referral last week, bringing support from other nations – including India – that had been waiting for their lead.
But in return, Moscow and Beijing demanded that the Americans – and France and Britain, the two other veto-wielding Security Council members – agree to let the Iran issue rest until at least March.
That is when the International Atomic Energy Agency board meets again to review the agency’s investigation of Iran’s nuclear program and its compliance with board demands that it renounce uranium enrichment.
That process can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material needed to build a warhead.
“The path chosen by Iran’s new leaders – threats, concealment and breaking international agreements and IAEA seals – will not succeed and will not be tolerated by the international community,” President Bush said in a statement.
Gregory Schulte, U.S. ambassador at the IAEA talks in Vienna, said the resolution calls for Iran to freeze uranium enrichment for which there is “no civil requirement,” reconsider the construction of a nuclear reactor able to produce weapons-grade plutonium and make its program transparent by giving the IAEA access to documents, sites and officials involved in nuclear activities.
“The authorities in Tehran, rather than threatening the world, should listen to the world and take the steps necessary to start regaining its confidence,” Schulte said.
In September, the IAEA found Iran in noncompliance with the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty based on reports that Iran had hidden sensitive nuclear activities for 18 years.
At the time, the agency held off on sending the findings to the Security Council in hopes that Iran would stop nuclear fuel work and fully cooperate with investigators.
Instead, Iran on Jan. 10 removed U.N. seals from its chief enrichment site in Natanz and resumed small- scale enrichment work after a 2 1/2-year suspension.
The move, which accompanied increasingly provocative statements by Ahmadinejad, nudged even the most reluctant nations toward supporting the resolution.
The text refers to “the absence of confidence that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes resulting from the history of concealment of Iran’s nuclear activities.”
Along with the resolution, all the agency’s Iran-related findings, including the noncompliance report, will go before the Security Council.
“The Iranian regime is today the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday at a conference in Germany. “The world does not want, and must work together to prevent, a nuclear Iran.”
Mohamed El Baradei, the IAEA director, has said the Security Council won’t act on the resolution until after he completes a report in March.
The U.S. and its allies have said it’s too early to talk about possible sanctions against Iran, expressing hope that the Islamic regime takes the next month to soften its stance or adopt a compromise such as an offer to enrich its uranium on Russian soil.
Sixteen nations belong to the IAEA’s Non-Aligned Movement, which is committed to the right of peaceful nuclear research for all countries, without discrimination.
Though many non-aligned states voted for the resolution, several delegates explained the vote as a continuation of diplomatic efforts.
The New York Times, The Associated Press and Knight Ridder News Service contributed to this report.
