Iran fails to stop harsh nuclear resolution

Iran forced the UN nuclear watchdog yesterday to admit a mistake in a key report, but failed to stop a resolution "deploring" its poor record of cooperation with the agency.

Diplomats confirmed the resolution, after days of haggling, had been formally submitted to the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, after which approval today is expected to be straightforward.

The final text of the resolution said the IAEA board "deplores... the fact that, overall... Iran's cooperation has not been as full, timely and proactive as it should have been."

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Wednesday rejected the draft as "very bad" and threatened to resume uranium enrichment.

Tehran agreed with Britain, France and Germany last October to suspend enrichment as a confidence-building gesture. The process is used in nuclear power plants but can also, if carried far enough, be used to make an atomic weapon.

The three EU countries were co-sponsors of the resolution. Iranian delegation chief Hossein Mousavian accused them of breaking their promise to work with Tehran to get the Iranian nuclear programme off the IAEA board's agenda and to put an end to the intrusive inspections underway in Iran.

Without addressing the issue of uranium enrichment directly, Mr Mousavian said there was no question of Tehran withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and added: "We maintain our commitment to cooperation with the IAEA."

Mr Mousavian also said it was a "victory for Iran" that the resolution contained no deadline for Tehran to resolve unanswered questions on its nuclear programme, something the United States had pushed hard for.

However, a major defeat for the Iranians was the inclusion of a clause urging Iran "voluntarily to reconsider" plans to operate a uranium conversion plant and begin construction of a heavy-water research reactor. The Iranians had fought hard to have this paragraph deleted.

Western diplomats said the reactor was a problem as it would produce little electricity but ample bomb-grade plutonium.

Tehran says its nuclear ambitions are limited to the generation of electricity, but Washington says its programme is a front for developing nuclear weapons.

Mr Mousavian had argued for a softening of the text after the IAEA was earlier forced into an embarrassing admission that it had wrongly accused Tehran of withholding information about imports of potentially weapons-related technology.

In a June 1 report, the agency had said Iran did not declare until April that it had imported essential parts for advanced P-2 centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

But the Iranians produced a tape recording this week proving a representative of a private Iranian company had told an IAEA inspector verbally in January.

Mousavian called the IAEA's oversight a "big mistake", telling reporters: "It shows Iranian cooperation, Iranian information has been full and precise, on time, with no contradictions and no changes."

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said it was a minor mistake. "This was made in an oral statement at the end of a particular meeting with one individual whose English was not very clear to us... It's a fault that we did not pick it up, it was not fed to our system," Mr ElBaradei said.

"You have to understand we work with thousands of papers and thousands of sites... Everybody makes mistakes."

US ambassador Kenneth Brill said Iran was using the issue as a "red herring" to divert attention from an atomic cover-up.

"It's interesting that they only seem to give information to the agency orally and not in writing," Mr Brill told reporters. "Why? So they can change their story when it's convenient."