Iran Says Recourse to UN Kills Nuclear Diplomacy
    By Paul Hughes
    Reuters

    Tuesday 31 January 2006

    Tehran - Iran said on Tuesday a move by the world's top five powers to report it to the U.N. Security Council would close diplomatic avenues to a solution of its long-running nuclear standoff with the West.

    Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany and the European Union agreed in London that the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog should report to the council this week on what Iran must do to cooperate with the agency.

    Iran reacted angrily to the new pressure and said even reporting its case to the council would kill off diplomatic efforts to resolve the row over a nuclear program that Tehran says is purely peaceful, not military as the West suspects.

    "We consider any referral or report of Iran to the Security Council as the end of diplomacy," Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and its chief nuclear negotiator, told state television.

    British Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the agreement to involve the council as a powerful signal to Iran.

    "I hope it's sending a message that the international community is united," Blair told Reuters Television. "This is going to be discussed and decided upon by the U.N. Security Council. That is a very important step. We couldn't get agreement on that before, we've got agreement on it now".

    However, with Russia and China opposed to hasty action, the agreement delayed any decision on formal referral of Iran to the council, where it could face sanctions, until after a scheduled International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting on March 6.

    Compromise

    "A compromise was reached between the participants," a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

    In a joint statement after their late-night talks in London, the foreign ministers said they had agreed that an emergency meeting of the IAEA board on Thursday "should report to the Security Council its decision on the steps required of Iran".

    Iran has warned that any move to inform the council about its case would prompt it to curtail snap U.N. inspections of nuclear facilities and resume enriching uranium, a process used to make fuel for power stations, or bomb-grade material.

    Libyan Energy Minister Fathi Omar Bin Shatwan said referral of Iran's case to the council would have a serious effect on world oil prices, already just shy of record highs.

    But Iran's Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri eased concerns that the world's fourth biggest crude oil producer could curb oil exports in reprisal, as Tehran has previously hinted it may do.

    "We are not mixing oil with politics," he told reporters at the start of an OPEC meeting in Vienna.

    Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met his Chinese counterpart in London and called for Thursday's IAEA meeting to be canceled, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian and Chinese diplomats would fly to Tehran shortly to urge Iran to answer outstanding IAEA concerns, Russian media reported.

    Iran can count on support at the IAEA board meeting from Venezuela and an abstention from India but the compromise agreed in London is likely to get a comfortable majority in any vote.

    Iranian officials argued more time was needed for talks.

    "We have asked for talks with the Europeans which shows that Iran wants to try all amicable ways to achieve peaceful nuclear technology," Larijani was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA students news agency.

    Building Confidence

    British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said an extensive period of "confidence-building" was required from Iran.

    Iran says its nuclear program is only for electricity and that it has a right to nuclear technology. It has alarmed the West by restarting nuclear fuel processing and research which had been suspended for more than two years.

    This month it removed U.N. seals on uranium enrichment equipment at its Natanz facility in central Iran.

    Russia, which is building Iran's first nuclear power reactor, backed Western calls for Iran to halt sensitive nuclear work in order to rebuild trust, as agreed at the London meeting.

    But Javad Vaeedi, deputy head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Iran had no intention of backing down.

    "Research and development is the Iranian nation's legitimate right and is irreversible," he told state television.

    On Monday, Iran proposed its ideas to European officials in Brussels. They said the meeting yielded nothing new but that talks could be resumed if Tehran complied with IAEA requests.

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    Additional reporting by Parisa Hafei and Paul Hughes in Tehran, Madeline Chambers in London, Oliver Bullough in Moscow and OPEC team in Vienna.