Iran to resume nuclear work

2005-08-01 08:15

Tehran - Iran said it would resume limited sensitive nuclear work on Monday whether or not it received European proposals aimed at ending a long-running standoff.

"We will resume activities this evening in Isfahan," an official said on condition of anonymity, referring to a facility for uranium conversion, a phase in the nuclear fuel cycle.

Iran's action risks it being hauled before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, an action long demanded by the United States.

It was reported on Sunday that at least three days would be needed to convene an emergency meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog agency if the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme were to escalate, an agency spokesperson said.

It would take "at least 72 hours" to convene a session in Vienna of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation board of governors, which could then send the Iranian dossier to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions against Tehran.

Damaging step

Britain warned Iran on Sunday against taking the "damaging step" of resuming nuclear fuel work and said that if the Iranians persisted, the EU "will as a first step consult urgently with our partners on the board of the IAEA, which is monitoring Iran's nuclear" activities.

The IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear program since February 2003 on US charges that the Islamic republic is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

The United States wants Iran brought before the Security Council but is backing a European Union diplomatic effort to get Iran to guarantee it will not make nuclear weapons.

The IAEA currently has inspectors in Iran, although not necessarily at the uranium conversion site in Isfahan where the Iranians plan on resuming work related to uranium enrichment, a diplomat in Vienna said.

Enrichment is the process that makes fuel for civilian nuclear power plants, but this material can also be the explosive core of nuclear bombs.

- AFP