TEHRAN, Feb 4: Iran is poised to resume nuclear work in retaliation over being reported to the Security Council, officials said on Saturday. A statement from the office of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirmed the measures would be taken, and a senior official said the International Atomic Energy Agency would be officially informed later on Saturday.

“We will give the letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency today,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

“We will inform them of the resumption of enrichment and the halt in the application of the additional protocol,” he said.

Neither the official nor the president’s office said when Iran would actually remove IAEA seals from its enrichment facilities, although other officials have said such a move could be immediate.

The additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed by Iran’s former pro-reform government but never ratified by the parliament, provides the IAEA with stronger inspection powers.

Large-scale enrichment is an ultra-sensitive process to make reactor fuel which can also be extended to make the fissile core of a nuclear weapon.

Talking to reporters in Vienna, Javad Vaidi, head of the Iranian delegation to an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting, said the “(IAEA’s) resolution is politically motivated since it is not based on any legal or technical grounds. Our government has to implement full-scale enrichment.”—AFP