Iran stands by threat to end UN inspections

IRAN will carry through its threat to end tough UN nuclear inspections and resume ultra-sensitive uranium enrichment on an industrial scale, if it is hauled before the UN Security Council, a national security spokesman told AFP.

Hossein Entezami also dismissed the possibility of Israel launching a military strike against Iran, and labelled French president Jacques Chirac a danger to world peace for threatening to use nuclear arms against state sponsors of terrorism. "If our case goes to the UN Security Council, and regardless of what decisions are then taken, the government will . . . resume all nuclear activities which have been voluntary suspended," he said yesterday.

This, he said, would include "enrichment on an industrial scale and an end to the application of the additional protocol" to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which provides the International Atomic Energy Agency with greater inspection powers.