US reserves right to take Iran before Security Council

IRAN escaped UN censure over its nuclear programme yesterday but Washington, which accuses it of seeking an atomic bomb, said it reserved the right to take the case to the Security Council.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a UN watchdog, passed a resolution approving Iran’s week-old suspension of sensitive nuclear activities as part of a deal with the European Union. Crucially, and in line with Iranian demands, the resolution described the freeze as a voluntary, confidence-building measure and not a legally binding commitment.

Its passage meant that Tehran, which denies it wants the bomb, had achieved its immediate goal: to prevent the IAEA from referring it to the UN Security Council for possible economic sanctions.

“This resolution which was approved by the IAEA was a definite defeat for our enemies who wanted to pressure Iran by sending its case to the UN Security Council,” President Mohammad Khatami was quoted by state radio as saying.

The US believes Iran is playing games with the international community and wants to see it referred to the Council. US envoy Jackie Sanders told the IAEA’s board of governors that Washington reserved the right to go it alone.

“Quite apart from the question of how this board chooses to handle these matters, of course, the United States reserves all of its options with respect to Security Council consideration of the Iranian nuclear weapons programme,” she said. “Any member of the United Nations may bring to the attention of the Security Council any situation that might endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.”

Sanders also issued a stern warning to companies against exporting weapons-related equipment to Iran. The United States “will impose economic burdens on them and brand them as proliferators,” she said.

A White House spokesman said: “The implementation and verification of the agreement is critical. Iran has failed to comply with its commitments many times over the course of the past year and a half.”

The developments capped five days of diplomatic poker over the terms of a deal Iran struck with the European Union this month to suspend all activities relating to enriching uranium.

Iran had first raised new demands and then backed down again, at one point throwing the deal into doubt. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran had now withdrawn a request to be allowed to continue research on 20 enrichment centrifuges, and inspectors had yesterday installed surveillance cameras to monitor them.

In Tehran, some 500 members of a conservative volunteer militia pelted the British embassy with stones and firecrackers, protesting that the Iran-EU deal was a sellout.