Defiant Iran to resume key nuclear tests

Telegraph:

By Alec Russell in Washington and Behzad Farsian, Iran Correspondent

(Filed: 01/08/2005)

Iran dramatically raised the stakes in the international crisis over its nuclear ambitions yesterday, pledging to defy the West by resuming a key part of its sensitive nuclear fuel processing as early as today.

With less than a day's notice Teheran issued a deadline of 12.30pm GMT yesterday for European Union negotiators to present proposals for incentives for Iran to suspend indefinitely its nuclear programme. Part of the uranium enrichment process at the Isfahan plant, Iran A British official labelled it a "dangerous step". The Foreign Office urged Teheran not to take "unilateral steps" that could jeopardise months of negotiations with the European Union. But last night Iranian officials indicated that the deadline had passed and that it would press ahead with its threat. The latest showdown raises the possibility that Iran will be referred to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions, a course of action long sought by the Bush administration. Some diplomats are clinging to the hope that this is a last-minute attempt by Iran to put pressure on Europe ahead of negotiations that had been planned for later this week. Teheran insists its nuclear programme is for civilian and peaceful purposes only and is needed to create electricity. But the EU fears and Washington is convinced that Iran is really seeking to make nuclear weapons. The EU troika heading the nuclear talks with Iran - Britain, France and Germany - was planning to offer Iran later this week some economic, political and security incentives as a carrot to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear programme. Officials had said the proposals would be submitted after president Mahmood Ahmadinejad takes office on Wednesday.

Iran suspended all uranium enrichment and conversion last November under intense diplomatic pressure. It insists that the deadline for the EU to present its bargaining chip was Aug 1 and made clear yesterday that it felt entitled to resume activities today.

"If we do not receive the EU proposal today, tomorrow morning we will start part of [our] activities in Isfahan's uranium conversion facility," Ali Aghamohammadi, a spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said yesterday. He added that all work would be done under the supervision of UN inspectors.

The Foreign Office said the EU would produce new proposals within a week despite Iran's threat.

Hamid Reza Asefi, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, said Iran would inform the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, by today at the latest of its intention to resume uranium conversion work.

"The time limit [on the suspension of such activities] has passed and public opinion cannot wait any longer," he said.

According to last November's agreement, Iran committed itself to continue and extend its suspension to include all "enrichment related and reprocessing activities". Iran's pledge threatens to set in train what many in Washington and Europe had long feared would be a summer of confrontation over its nuclear ambitions.