January 10, 2006	Tuesday	Zilhaj 9, 1426

TEHRAN, Jan 9: Iran said on Monday it would not review its decision on resumption of research on nuclear fuel, prompting the United States to warn Tehran that it could refer the issue to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

Mohamed El Baradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a television interview the world was running out of patience with Tehran in the dispute over its nuclear programme.

Germany, France and EU president Austria made clear their opposition to the Iranian decision.

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said Iran’s decision was ‘the wrong step in the wrong direction and a cause of very serious concern’, though her Chancellor, Wolfgang Schuessel, said it was too soon to discuss sanctions.

Germany, France and Britain have been trying for over two years to persuade Iran to scrap its uranium enrichment project.

The EU and the United States suspect Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, but Iran denies this and says it wants only to generate electricity.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told a news conference the decision ‘is a cause for great concern’ and urged Iran to back down immediately.

His German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told reporters there would be repercussions. “It would be a breach of the agreements we reached in Paris,” he said, referring to the Nov 2004 accord in which Iran agreed to freeze its enrichment programme while in talks with the EU trio.

ELBARADEI: In an interview with Britain’s Sky Television, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei expressed his exasperation with Iran.

“I am running out of patience, the international community is running out of patience, the credibility of the verification process is at stake,” he told Sky.

“Everybody would like to see us clarifying the remaining issues, everybody would like to see a regime by which the international community is assured that the Iranian programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes,” he said.

US WARNING: In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said of Iran’s nuclear programme: “They have a history of concealing their activities from the international community and not abiding by their international obligations.

“The international community is making it clear that if they don’t come into compliance and adhere to their obligations, the next step would be referral to the Security Council.”

The EU and the United States back a Russian plan for Iran to enrich uranium in Russia, which would ensure the uranium was enriched only to levels needed to generate electricity. Talks between Russia and Iran, so far unsuccessful, resume on

Feb 16.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a staunch conservative, has refused to renounce the right to uranium enrichment and stirred up more mistrust in the West by dismissing the Holocaust as ‘a myth’ and calling Israel a ‘tumour’ to be ‘wiped off the map’.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Sunday Iran would restart work when the IAEA was ready to supervise the removal of seals it put in place two years ago.

Diplomats close to the IAEA said that if Iran did restart nuclear research and development, it would prompt a report to the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors, which would decide whether to call an emergency meeting of all members.

That meeting could decide whether to refer Tehran to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions. —Reuters