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Rice says Iran in 'open defiance' on nuclear program(Turkish Daily News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)By resuming uranium enrichment for nuclear fuel, Iran is in "open defiance" of the international community, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday. Rice told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Bush administration has been examining the "full range of sanctions on Iran" and is also considering additional sanctions the United States could impose on its own, although international action would be more effective. "They have now crossed a point where they are in open defiance" of the international community, she said. Appearing before lawmakers, Rice gave no details. The United States has had broad sanctions on Iran since that country's 1979 Islamic revolution. New enrichment work 'escalates' atom crisis: In another development, EU president Austria said on Wednesday Iran's resumption of work to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel had needlessly raised tensions with the West, which fears Tehran is covertly striving to build atomic bombs. U.N. inspectors saw Iranian scientists feeding uranium gas into a few centrifuge machines in a test run on Tuesday, officials associated with the International Atomic Energy Agency said. The action defied Western efforts to have Iran give up enrichment work in exchange for trade and other incentives. Iran confirmed to Russia on Wednesday that a delegation would come to Moscow on Feb. 20 for much-delayed talks on a Russian proposal to defuse the crisis by purifying Iranian uranium on its soil, Interfax news agency said. But Tehran insists on a right to enrich uranium, the fuel for nuclear reactors or -- if purified to high levels -- warheads, on its own territory. The West fears this would allow Iran to divert high-grade fuel for clandestine bomb making. European Union powers and Washington persuaded the IAEA's board of governors on Feb. 4 to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible action, which could include sanctions. Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, in a telephone call with Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki on Tuesday, urged Iran to re-suspend uranium enrichment efforts because "this represents an unnecessary step towards escalation at a critical and decisive phase in (this dispute)," her office said. "We're not questioning Iran's right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy. But the history of Iran's nuclear program and the many unresolved questions have raised serious doubt about an exclusively peaceful use of this program," she said. She said Iran's resumption of uranium enrichment activities would damage relations with the 25-nation EU. Russia and France issued similar calls on Tuesday. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she saw a "real chance" for a negotiated solution, citing the Russian proposal and world support for the decision to report Iran to the Security Council. "We're a long way from having exhausted all the possibilities," she told the German weekly magazine Stern in an interview released ahead of publication on Thursday. "Iran must recognize that its actions have left it isolated within the international community and has gained nothing." Russia cool on sanctions: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in Vienna for talks with EU leaders, said the IAEA's ability to ensure compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran has signed, should be improved. "(But) I am convinced that ... sanctions will not help achieve this goal. Talks and work within the framework of the IAEA will help achieve this goal," Lavrov was quoted by Russia's RIA news agency as telling Russian journalists. Iran says its nuclear program, parts of which it concealed from the IAEA for almost two decades, is designed solely to generate electricity for its economy. Iran has given conflicting statements on what exactly is being done at the Natanz pilot fuel enrichment plant. Gholamreza Aghazadeh, director of Iran's atomic program, was quoted by ISNA student news agency on Tuesday as saying the centrifuge work relaunched was on a "small laboratory scale". "Injecting gas into one or a few centrifuges could not be termed enrichment," he was quoted as saying. A senior Iranian official, who asked not to be named, denied on Wednesday that any uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas had been injected and said he could attest to this because he had been with inspectors all day at Natanz on Tuesday. "Iran has not done any uranium enrichment work yet but the ground has been paved to do so," he said in Tehran. A diplomat accredited to the Vienna-based IAEA said on Tuesday inspectors watched Iranians doing test infusions of UF6 into "less than 10 centrifuges" among a cascade of 164 that were operating at Natanz before it was mothballed in 2003. Another IAEA-linked official, who asked not to be named, said the amount of UF6 put into centrifuges "was of absolutely no use" for making bomb material. He called the new work "an early testing phase en route to mastering the technology". Tehran believes the Western-backed push to curb its nuclear program will eventually fade because of international dependence on Iranian oil and gas exports. Iran had vowed to resume uranium enrichment and halt short-notice IAEA inspections in retaliation for the IAEA vote. |