US wants UN resolution to clearly warn Iran

Washington wants France, Germany and Britain to agree to warn Iran it will be reported to the UN Security Council if any further violations of its nuclear obligations are uncovered, diplomats said yesterday.

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-member Board of Governors on Friday adjourned talks until Wednesday, to give diplomats a chance to revise a resolution drafted by the three European states condemning Iran's 18-year concealment of atomic research which could be arms-related.

Informal talks were to continue yesterday between Washington and the Europeans to toughen up the proposed IAEA resolution, two drafts of which the Americans have rejected as too weak.

Washington accuses Iran of having a secret nuclear weapons programme. But it has dropped its demand that the resolution find Iran in "non-compliance" with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and be reported to the Council for sanctions.

One Western diplomat said yesterday the United States was pushing for a "trigger mechanism" stating clearly that Tehran would "be reported" for any more NPT breaches uncovered by the IAEA - which could only mean reporting to the Council.

The second draft of the resolution, seen by Reuters, does contain such a "trigger mechanism", but Washington rejected it as too vague and is helping draft a third. But diplomats said the Germans were afraid a strong "trigger" would backfire and cause the Iranians to curtail cooperation with the IAEA.

Iran accused Washington of holding up the process of agreeing on an IAEA resolution. US officials have said they would prefer no resolution to a weak one.

"The Americans, who failed to impose their views on the other members of the board, want to create tension and are now wasting time," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a weekly news conference in Tehran.

"Our European friends are convinced that Iran has not violated the international agreements," Mr Asefi said.

The resolution will most likely also contain a timetable to keep up the pressure on Iran to cooperate with IAEA inspectors.

Iran denies wanting nuclear weapons but has acknowledged hiding experiments with uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing from the IAEA. Tehran says it has no more secrets.

The struggle to arrive at an agreement on an IAEA resolution on Iran has ignited a war of words between the UN body and the United States.

On Friday, the US ambassador to the IAEA, Kenneth Brill, harshly criticised the IAEA for saying in a report on Iran it had "no evidence" that Tehran had a secret weapons programme. It should have said instead it had "no proof", he said.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in response accused Brill of making "disingenuous" remarks.

Diplomats have said privately that the US failure to get the IAEA board to report Iran to the Security Council reflects the damage done to the credibility of US intelligence by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage rejected this view in an interview on the US broadcaster PBS.

"On the contrary," he said. "Now faced with the admissions of the Iranians themselves, I think that both our intelligence agencies and our political judgments are validated."