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Bush: Message to Iran clear
05/02/2006 09:02 - (SA)
Crawford - The UN nuclear watchdog's decision to report Iran to the UN security council is a clear message that the world will not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, US President George W Bush said on Saturday.
"This important step sends a clear message to the regime in Iran that the world will not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons," the US leader said in a statement.
But Bush added that the vote "is not the end of diplomacy or the IAEA's role. Instead, it is the beginning of an intensified diplomatic effort to prevent the Iranian regime from developing nuclear weapons.
"We will continue working with our international partners to achieve that common objective."
The 35-member board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency voted 27-3 in Vienna on Saturday to report Iran to the council, with the understanding that it will take no action until at least after the next IAEA board meeting in March and an assessment then from IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
Bush said he expected the UN Security Council to back IAEA calls for Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activity, cooperate fully with the IAEA, and return to negotiations with Britain, France and Germany.
"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. The regime's continued defiance only further isolates Iran from the rest of the world," Bush said.
But, in an echo of his State of the Union speech to Congress earlier this week, Bush also directly addressed "the Iranian people", saying that the IAEA vote was not an attempt to deny them access to civilian nuclear power.
"Iran's true interests lie in working with the international community to enjoy the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy," he said.
Iran reacted sharply to the IAEA resolution, saying it would limit IAEA inspections and prepare to resume uranium enrichment.
But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared to stop short of ordering an immediate resumption of uranium enrichment -- a process that makes reactor fuel but which can also be extended to make the fissile core of a nuclear bomb.
Tehran prompted the latest crisis in the long-running standoff with the West by resuming uranium conversion activities last August and enrichment research on January 10.
Iran insists it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and that its program is for electricity production, not weapons.
- AFP
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